Sword Art Online: Back to Ones and Zero
by Latin Ramen
Summary: "Sometimes one can only see the futility of their own actions in hindsight". Looking back on his own struggles, all he can see is pointless suffering. This is the story of a boy, not a hero. A boy who has long since stopped fighting. Not all tales have happy endings, and in a game that traps 10,000 players in a fight for their lives, many are bound to end up with a "Game Over".
1. Chapter 1

**0 Years: 0 Days: 0 Hours: 0 Minutes: 0 Seconds Remaining**

"Start from the beginning."

It's a very valid argument. Starting from the beginning leaves no one in the dark. It means that everyone, sometimes literally, starts on the same page. However, I would like to refute that point using a few of my own. To begin, how exactly does one define the beginning. A human is the accumulation of their experiences. Every action we make is dependent on the past. In fact, the present is a result of a practically infinite number of coincidences. It makes you wonder why people think that nothing they do matters. One would think that a single choice could divert the flow of time. I think I may have figured it out though; sometimes one can only see the futility of their own actions in hindsight.

I looked down at my stomach. This time I knew that the injection had truly entered my bloodstream. I would be lying if I didn't say that my life flashed before my eyes. It seemed fitting that my situation that had started with a sick twisted cliché would also end with one. Looking back, all I saw was futile struggling. In the end, though, I couldn't hope to escape the shadows of my past. The nightmare that had continued to haunt me for four years since it started was finally going to be the end of me.

The weakness I felt in my knees finally took over and I collapsed. The drug was doing its work quickly. I thank whatever higher power that was still listening to me that at least my end should be relatively painless. Looking around with my gradually fading vision I saw two figures. One with chestnut brown hair and hazel eyes was looking down at me. She was both the object of my admiration and the cause of my suffering. Just as I had expected, I could sense no remorse in her stare. I suppose that in the end that was only fair.

I turned my attention to the man lying on the ground a few feet in front of me. He too had a wound on his stomach, though while my injury was seemingly invisible, blood was flowing from his. In his hand, he held a needleless syringe, the same one that had injected a lethal dose of succinylcholine into my blood. Likewise, in my hand was the weapon that had put a hole in his stomach. It had been far from the climactic battle my life had been building up to. Even so, knowing that in the end, I may have been able to pay back some of the pain gave me a small amount of satisfaction. The expectations forced onto me by my friends. The pain and hatred forced onto me by my enemies. That possibly even after all my pointless struggling I was able to return some of the pain of my tormentors. With that thought, I curled into the fetal position and waited to die.

The brown-haired girl stood looking at the scene in front of her. She despised the two figures lying on the ground in front of her. Why was it then that she found tears in her eyes and an intense sadness in her soul? She stood staring at the scene before her for the longest time. For the first time in her life, she found herself unable to act. Being able to act was act was always one of her strong suits, but at this moment she had absolutely no idea what to do.

She noticed a stark difference between the two laying in front of her. The man that lay furthest from her struggled desperately. He gripped the hole in his stomach with a bunched-up portion of his shirt trying to slow the bleeding. Every ounce of his mind seemed to be devoted to holding on to life. However, the boy in front of her merely curled up in defeat. Despite the deadly toxin running through his body, he seemed relaxed. He seemed to have given in. All of his actions seemed to accept the inevitable.

She didn't know how long she had been standing still before the police and an ambulance arrived. The paramedics rushed to the two figures on the concrete, doing what they could to save the two. Shortly after, a paramedic ran up to her.

"Were you the one who called 911?"

She was, she realized after a moment, and nodded.

"Did you know either of the victims?

For some reason, she felt angry. Only one of them was really a victim. But, both of them got what they deserved, didn't they? Her brain was telling her two different things. In the end, all she could do was nod.

"Do you know what happened?"

She pointed to the black-haired boy, "The man with white hair is named Kanamoto Atsushi. The other one is named Kazuto Kirigaya. Atsushi injected him with succinylcholine and he tried to defend himself with his umbrella."

Upon hearing this the paramedic immediately shouted to her companions. She turned back to the girl.

"It seems like you two were close, would you like to ride in the ambulance with him."

They weren't close, was what one side of her said, but the silent tears that were streaming down her face said otherwise. In the end, she found herself riding beside the black-haired boy looking as the paramedics desperately tried to save the boy from cardiac arrest. Watching this desperate struggle, she felt the veil that hung over her mind finally unravel. Everything in her mind finally started fitting into place.

"Kirito", the girl named Asuna whispered.

The EKG monitor flatlined. Asuna starred in horrified silence at the final moments of the struggle the boy named Kirito had long since given up on.

Thus, we rewind to the day one boy's struggle started, 3 years, 236 days, 9 hours, 36 minutes and 18 seconds ago.

 **3 Years: 236 Day: 9 Hours: 36 Minutes: 18 Seconds Remaining**

As had become typical lately, my room was bathed in a relative darkness. Although some light still seeped in from the cracks in my window shade, the general mood in my room remained the same: an empty grey. Against the back wall, my computer displayed an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) stream I was only half listening to. At the same time, I sat on my bed absentmindedly thumbing through a magazine article about the video game designer, Kayaba Akihiko who had just recently stepped into the limelight. I usually gave myself several things to focus on so that when my attention drifted I could narrow in on something else. Today, however, all of my attention was aligned with the rest of the gaming community. It was November 6th, 2022, the day the community had been holding its breath for since May. Ever since the closed beta of Sword Art Online.

Sword Art Online was the first virtual reality massively-multiplayer online game, or VRMMO as the small subgenre had been coined. The game was the first of its type, developed for the high-tech system of NerveGear. Both the software and the hardware were Kayaba's brainchildren. Starting in 2016 he had begun work with a group of neuroscientists to map out the brain's neural responses and create a machine that could directly interface with it. Although many uses for the team's revolutionary work were being explored, the first to be completed, was the NerveGear, built specifically for gaming, obvious considering Akihiko's background in video games. The tech rendered a virtual world by reading and sending the nerve impulses associated with sensory information. It also allowed the player to directly control their avatar by interrupting the nerve impulses responsible for movement and translating them into the virtual world.

At first, the only launch titles were mostly simulations, ported games and a handful of originals with very limited worlds. Although it was enough material to satisfy the community for a while, I came away with a fairly disappointed feeling at the wasted graphical potential and the games in general. That was until Sword Art Online, Akihiko's magnum opus.

Although there were rumors about the project far in advance it wasn't officially announced until last summer. It would consist of a huge overworld with a variety of terrains, monsters, and places to explore, all of which you got to experience firsthand.

Last May marked the closed beta. A thousand players were selected by raffle to participate in the month-long beta. I was one of the lucky few accepted. Now five months later I had a guaranteed spot in the very limited initial launch while the rest of the world scrambled for the remaining nine thousand spots. The number of players allowed on the server would be slowly incremented as the dev team tested how much strain large populations of players would put on the servers. From what I had heard some people had to camp out for three days to be far enough up in line to get one of the physical copies and the number of people on the waiting list was already beyond one hundred thousand. Now on the first Saturday of November, the official release was only an hour away.

I was pulled back to Earth by a distant voice.

"I'm off to practice!" the feminine voice shouted.

Slowly, I put the magazine down and rose from my bed. I walked over to my window and pulled open a small crack in the curtains so I could look out. My sister Suguha was jogging out the front gate with a duffle bag over her shoulder.

"She's still at it", I quietly whispered.

I barely talked to or saw my sister much anymore. Granted that was mostly my problem, but I could barely look her in the eye anymore. For that matter, I could barely look anyone in the eye anymore.

At that moment I noticed that I was starting to stink. _Might as well clean up_ , I thought. I still had another half an hour and considering how much I would most likely be playing in the near future it was probably best to get it out of the way.

I entered the bathroom and began to undress. After turning on the water I glanced at myself in the mirror. I was overly thin and bony, to the point where my ribs were showing and my cheeks looked very hollow. I hadn't ever been a very good eater, especially as of the late. Although I'd never had much meat on my bones I knew that I was currently very underweight. I sighed, not for the first time and began my shower.

After washing and redressing I returned to my room, back into its characteristic darkness. Glancing momentarily at the clock, I noticed I only had a few more minutes before the server open and Sword Art Online, or SAO as most called it, officially launched. I walked over to my mostly bare bookshelf and pulled off the NerveGear.

The NerveGear was a grey helmet of sorts that extended down to the nape. Additionally, it had a strap meant to go under the chin for keeping the helmet secure. I plugged the device in and sat down on my bed. I adorned the helmet once again feeling a sense of exhilaration and rested my head on my pillow. I closed my eyes and softly spoke the nostalgic command, "Link, Start".

A barrage of colors flashed through my vision along with several other bits of sensory information. A screen confirmed that all sensory components were working properly. The screen faded into a game selection screen, which, like the menus in the game, I could navigate either through a series of gestures or just by thinking or saying the proper commands. From there I selected SAO and my field of vision faded to black. A prompt on my screen read, _An existing character profile has been found. Would you like to continue using it?_ Considering that I had rather liked my original avatar I selected yes. The screen faded to white and a large message appeared on my screen, Welcome to Sword Art Online.

I watched as the cutting technology rendered the starting city of SAO. First the cobblestone streets then the buildings with tiled roofs and finally the sky and ceiling of the floor above. The world of Aincrad was a roughly conical 100-floor castle, each floor containing new types of terrain and obstacles. The first floor alone was 10 km across and the spawn city took up nearly twenty percent of its surface. Each floor opened up on the perimeter to the cloudy void below the castle. Just for fun, I had jumped off during the beta to see what free falling felt like. It was liberating, in a way, watching as I approached the clouds.

Bringing my attention to my surroundings I took in the nostalgic Town of Beginnings. Facing in front of me stood the Black Iron Palace, a giant black castle that had held the Chamber of Resurrection, the respawn point in the event of a player's death. The palace was the farthest north point on the first floor and its unfinished moat spilled into the void. In the back, there was an observation deck that was a great place to appreciate the state-of-the-art virtual reality of Sword Art Online.

Additionally, the palace also held a prison. Due to the increase in player freedom a Moral Infraction Code was put into place. Violators would be sent to the prison as a temporary punishment with ban possible for continued infractions. This, of course, happened far more often than most people would like to admit, but I was one the few who, at the very least, had enough sense not to take advantage of the virtual environment (that does not include you TommyBoi420).

I took a look at the mirrors placed on either edge of the spawn area so players could admire their new looks. My avatar looked very dissimilar to my real body. The only similarities were my black hair and the height of the avatar, due to the fact that it was harder to play with an avatar that was of a different height than your real body. Symptoms of not using your proper height include; tripping over yourself (or directly into a spike trap if you're Tom) and sudden bouts of clumsiness. Beside that my avatar was completely different. Although my avatar is still somewhat lean, it's much more well-built that I was. As well as this my features had been altered to look handsome in ways only CGI could make them. Above my head was a tag stating the name I chose to be known by in this world, Kirito.

Satisfied with my new look, I turned around and charged out of the plaza and onto one of the main streets that spread out like a spider web from the plaza. I had sunk so much time into SAO beta that I knew the first ten floors or so like the back of my hand. I was heading to a weapons vendor that I remembered selling one of my favorite early game swords and as I wove through the streets and corridors, I genuinely smiled for what seemed like the first time in months.

 **3 Years: 236 Day: 5 Hours: 6 Minutes: 18 Seconds Remaining**

It was now 5:30 and so far, I had spent four and a half hours inside SAO. I had spent the entire day alone, reacclimating to my virtual body until my movements were almost as refined as they were during the beta. The feeling of using the sword skills, system guided movements that helped a player attack or use close to any weapon for any purpose, even if they had never touched a sword in real life, was just as exhilarating as I remembered it (especially without TommyBoi following me. I may have no friends but that doesn't mean I have no standards.).

I currently lay on the ground observing the sunset over the terrain of Aincrad. To my left was the Town of Beginnings and to my right were the first two clearable areas. A lake region and dense forest region, both of them offered interesting beginners challenges.

It had been a good first day but I knew that I would soon need to log out and have dinner. However, it had been so long since I had felt so good, so I was content watching the beautiful computer-generated landscape for a little longer.

I had avoiding people for the past few hours, but I expected I would run into someone from the beta test sooner or later. Although I didn't have any real friends, I did know a handful of people from the beta test. Even if it was online, I was hoping I could finally break out of my shell a bit.

I sighed thinking about what was to come in the coming months. The game I had been waiting months for had finally been released, and I would once again be able to experience living as swordsman once again. During the beta test, SAO was the only thing on my mind and it had given me something I could look forward to through the drudgery of my life.

Realizing it was about time to log out I opened the menu and navigated to the logout button. Or at least where I thought the logout button was. The slot on my allowed a player to log had in the beta test was completely blank. I spent the next few minutes navigating through the menus trying to find it. I started to get worried after I couldn't find it five minutes later. Switching tactics, I both spoke and thought the logout command, neither of which worked.

I sighed assuming that it was just a first-day bug. _The game masters are probably freaking out right now_ , I thought. From there I sent a message to the GM explaining the issue. Satisfied for the time being I went back to observing my surroundings. Then in the distance, I heard the clock tower bell back in the town of beginnings. However, the bell sounded different than usual. It rang slightly out of tune which gave the bell an eerie effect. After the bell, I noticed that the usual ambient noises around me had gone silent.

At first, I thought I was imagining things until a particle effect appeared around me. _A forced teleport?_ I thought. Before long I appeared in the plaza of the Town of Beginnings. Around me the plaza filled with other players. It appeared as though someone had forced a teleport of all players to the central plaza. Confused for a moment, I noticed something in the sky. A message outlined in red read, _System Announcement_. _Oh, I thought, they're just gathering the players to explain the bug or to welcome everyone_. I felt relief as the final few players were teleported into the game.

Then, the red surrounding the message expanded bathing the plaza in a red glow. My sense of worry slowly returned as a red liquid oozed from the dome and started to congeal into a humanoid figure. The behemoth of a figure appeared as an empty red cloak with gold trim. Although it hung in a way that made it look like it was being worn, only blackness could be seen under the hood or up the sleeves. White gloves hung in a similar fashion with nothing connecting them to the main body. After a moment a very calm and serene voice rang out from the hood.

"My name is Kayaba Akihiko and I would like to personally like to welcome you to Sword Art Online."

 _Kayaba Akihiko?! Why is the game developer is actually communicating with us, shouldn't it be the GM?_

"I have called you here to make an announcement. As I'm sure many of you have noticed, the logout button is missing from the game's menu. I assure you, this is not a mistake, this is simply part of SAO's system."

The crowd was silent for a moment and then a barrage of murmuring started.

"What does he mean?"

"Is there another way to log out."

It only took a moment for him to clarify.

"In other words, you can no longer log out of your own free will."

This left the audience in silence.

"Not only can you no longer log out but I have made sure that the NerveGear will not be removed from the outside either. If someone attempts to remove, damage, or disrupt the functions of the NerveGear, I have calibrated it to send an electromagnetic pulse that will destroy your brain."

"He's joking."

"There's no way..."

The problem was that there was a way. The NerveGear did use microwaves to interface with the brain, but there was supposed to be a safety to keep them below dangerous levels. If the safety was disabled it was entirely possible. I turned my attention back to the figure in the sky.

"Although I have told the rest of the world of this condition. Many people still attempted to remove the NerveGear. This has so far resulted in the death of 216 people. I think it's fair to say the chance of the NerveGear being removed is quite low."

A series of articles were projected in front of Kayaba Akihiko. "216 Killed by the NerveGear" and "10,000 Stuck in Sword Art Online", were just a few of their titles.

This seemed to strike a chord among Kayaba's audience and a collective gasp was released.

"No..."

"216?!"

"To be clearer, disconnection from an outside source of electricity for ten minutes, being cut off from the system for more than two hours, or any attempt to: unlock, dismantle, or destroy the NerveGear will result in the destruction of your brain. This condition was put in place in the case of power outages and to give the outside world a chance to move your real bodies to hospitals."

The audience seemed to have lost all responsive capabilities. People were going into shock. No one could properly believe what they were hearing.

Kayaba continued, "There is one final condition to your imprisonment, if you perish within the game the NerveGear will simultaneously fry your brain."

"Wait, so if we die in the game…" someone said.

 _We die for real_ , I finished in my head. Then everyone around me finally snapped. A single high-pitched scream broke the silence and everyone went to madness.

"You can't do this!"

"You're insane!"

People around me collapsed. The plaza was filled with sounds of despair. Even I was starting to accept the implications. Everyone had a gun to their head. Anyone could leave this world and the real one at any moment, even me. I looked around and for the first time in a while, took in the faces of the people surrounding me.

"There is but one way to escape Sword Art Online. It is to defeat the boss on the one-hundredth floor of Aincrad. You need not worry about the world outside this one any longer, you can focus on playing the game"

This statement only amplified the reaction of the crowd.

"You expect us to play around?! In a situation like this?!"

"Release us! Let us go home!"

Kayaba continued to ignore all of these comments.

"With that, I would like to announce one more wrinkle. I have placed an item in your inventory. Please take a look."

Pleased to finally have something to do besides listen, I opened my inventory and selected the item Kayaba had placed there. As it generated in my hand I realized what it was. A small hand-held mirror. I watched in horror as my features suddenly started to change. The fullness of my face started to melt away and by the end, I was staring at the face I had always been trying to avoid. My real face. Looking down I noticed the clothes that had fit my frame so well earlier now hung loosely. I realized what had happened immediately. My avatar had been changed to mirror my real-world body. The NerveGear was capable of high-density scans of the head which most likely gave it all the information it needed to render our heads. As for our bodies, part of the NerveGear's setup had us pat our body down as a form of calibration. I assumed this had actually been used to find our real body appearances.

"As you can see I have wiped away the masks that online gaming gives you and revealed your true self."

Looking around I could see that most people's appearances had changed, sometimes drastically. In some cases, it was just the build and/or the face, but other time it was height, weight or even gender.

"This concludes your introduction. With that, I wish you all the best of luck and would like to reiterate what I said earlier. Welcome to Sword Art Online, my world."

The figure slowly vaporized into steam at the red dome covering the sky faded away. For a moment everything was still. Then the mass panic ensued full force. Players screamed. People collapsed. It affected everyone around me. I managed to block away my thoughts and squeeze through the crowd. Eventually, I reached the edge of the mob and I took off running. Through the streets and out of the Town of Beginnings. Across the now far more sinister grasslands of the first floor of Aincrad. But most of all, away from the 10,000 souls I was now trapped with.

 **3 Years: 233 Days: 23 Hours: 23 Minutes: 22 Seconds Remaining**

I had arrived in Horunka Village shortly after sunset on the first day. A soft, gradually fading orange glow was cast over the town. The village was surrounded by trees and generally used as a hunting outpost, but one of the strongest swords on the first floor could be obtained there. With a little work, of course. Although it wasn't the strongest in terms of base stats, it could be upgraded far further than any other sword on the first floor, making it a viable weapon several floors beyond this one.

I walked with purpose to the edge of the village where I knew the quest for the sword could be initiated. My destination was a wooden cottage with a thatched roof. I knocked on the door and a middle-aged woman answered the door.

"I'm sorry, sir. I cannot take any work at the moment. My daughter, Agatha, is very ill and I must tend to her. Her condition is unique and can only be cured by medicine produced by rare carnivorous plants in the forest. They're both hard to kill and difficult to find so I have been unable to procure the medicine."

The woman looked down and tears started to well up in her eyes. I was once again astounded by how life-like the NerveGear could render this non-player character, or NPC for short.

"I'm sorry to hear that ma'am. If you need help I can get the medicine for you."

This was not how the quest was usually initiated. Normally, the woman would ask you to procure the medicine for her on her own. However, I was feeling extra sentimental that day.

"You would do that for me even without knowing my name?"

Despite being very lifelike the NPC's response was very cliched. Even the expression on her face looked as desperate as anyone would in her situation. I had to avert my eyes from her gaze.

"Yes."

"Thank you, good sir."

"I will repay you if you can procure the medicine for me."

A system prompt appeared asking, _Accept the Secret Medicine of the Forest Quest?_ I quickly pressed the accept button.

Now, two days later, I was still hunting for the plant. Their spawn rate was ridiculously low to begin with and the influx of people who had reached the town and accepted the quest made it even more difficult to obtain the medicine. In the beta, only a handful of people were ever attempting the quest at once but considering the circumstances in the current situation, a large group of people were always trying to complete the quest. Only a handful had succeeded so far.

I was currently stalking my way through the forest looking for the plant and leveling up my stealth skill at the same time. Skills in SAO were leveled up by continual use of them, so in order to level up stealth, one had to make as little noise as possible. I had been stalking for several hours now and it was already dark outside. Although I had expected the quest to take another day to complete under these conditions, I finally found the plant after several more minutes of searching.

I snuck around back in order to get a stealth attack on the monster. Once I finally reached striking distance, I got into initial position for the one-handed sword skill "Horizontal" and activated the skill. I let the system carry me through the movement and struck the carnivorous plant on the area I knew to be its weak spot. Although the strike was successful it wasn't enough and I forced to retreat as the plant enter defense mode.

Viney, spiked tendrils were raised into the air. One of them struck out at me and I nimbly danced out of reach. At the time of its next attack, I dashed forward around the strike and activated another sword skill, once again hitting the weak spot. This time I wasn't quite fast enough in getting out of the way and I was nicked by the thorns on one of the tendrils. Although there was a pain absorber I could a dull throb from the area where I had been nicked. The carnivorous plant then shot out a stream of acid I was only able to dodge by rolling.

I continued the hit and run attack for a time gradually whittling its health down occasionally I got hit again, but I was too caught up in the battle to notice. Before long I had finally killed the plant. Using a glass vial, I collected some of the medicine and began working my way back to the village. Occasionally I had to deal with another creature but none were as challenging as the plant, so I managed to get back to the village without any problems.

I looked up at my health bar to see that roughly twenty-five percent of my health and been drained. It wasn't anything that couldn't be healed by resting, so I was unconcerned. After navigating to the cottage on the outskirts of town I knocked on the medicine woman's door. She appeared about a half a minute later.

"Did you obtain the medicine?", she said, looking desperate.

I nodded and handed her the vial.

"Thank you, here come in. I'm sure my Agatha will want to thank you."

The medicine woman brought me upstairs and I watched as she gave the medicine to her sick daughter. Her daughter appeared to be a little older than me and had reddish-brown hair. The medicine did it work quickly and I watched the life return the girl's face. The medicine woman hugged Agatha tightly as I watched from the sidelines. After a time, the pair came up to me and the medicine woman spoke.

"Agatha, this is Kirito. He brought the medicine."

"You have my thanks, but I must ask: why are you crying?"

It was true, I was crying.

"Oh, it, nothing...", I said quietly.

The medicine woman presented me with a sword.

"This sword has been passed down in my family for generations. I give it to you as thanks for saving my daughter's life."

I accepted the sword and was pleasantly surprised by how it was heavier than my current one. I offered my thanks and left the house before they could say another word. The tears that came down my face were heavier now as well. Watching the medicine woman had reminded me of a time when I helped my mother care for my sister Suguha. As children, the two of us had been inseparable. But in retrospect, those memories were all bittersweet. After all, Suguha wasn't even my real sister. I had been adopted by my aunt after my parents died and even looking back I couldn't help but feel alienated.

The tears continued to flow down my face as I ran back to the house where I was staying and I shunned myself, because, deep down, part of me was glad to be stuck in this game.


	2. Chapter 2

**3 Years: 221 Days: 13 Hours: 43 Minutes: 30 Seconds Remaining**

"There is but one way to escape Sword Art Online. It is to defeat the boss on the one-hundredth floor of Aincrad."

I had considered those words often since the start of the Death Game. I wanted to reach the one-hundredth floor just as much as anyone, even though my motives were not quite the same. My current location was an extension of that goal. The canyons area where I was walking allowed for access to the eastern portion of the first floor where the town of Tolbana and the floor dungeon were located. I had almost made it to past the canyons this morning but I was already running behind, so as much as I wanted to make it the second floor, I had decided to call it quits for today.

After navigating through the winding canyons for about an hour I was once again greeted by grassy plains. Several early groups were already farming for experience. Off to my right, I took notice of a group of players wearing red dyed leather armor. They were facing a relatively large group of "Frenzy Boars". They were doing a fair job despite the difference in numbers and seemed to be having a lot of fun while battling. They weren't facing difficult opponents so there no need for them to be worried, but the friendly dynamics of their group were something I always envied, so I watched as they finished off their opponents. After they resolved their battle, the one who seemed to be leading struck a victory pose and the group all fisted bumped. Watching them made me smile a little, but at the time it filled me with sadness. I must have been staring too much because one of them noticed me and called me over. Reluctantly I jogged up to them.

"What's up man, jealous of our sick sword skills", one of them said to me. He had red hair and a bright kind smile. He seemed to be in his early twenties.

The question caught me off guard and I snorted and laughed a bit at his question.

"No, I was just taking note of your teamwork. Your sword skills are mediocre at best."

I was stunned at how easily the sentence had come out along with the sly and aloof smile that I now wore on my face. In the real world, I wouldn't have even been able to answer, much less criticize the group.

"Hey...", the leader said smiling. "It's not like you can be that much better than us."

"Hmmm, wanna bet", I said once again stunned at my own vocal inflection.

"You're on!"

The group followed me as I walked towards another boar a short distance away. Once I got in range. I picked up a rock and drew it back to activate a sword skill. The skill was originally designed for throwing picks, but it works with small rocks as well. I released the skill and sent the rock streaking towards the boar. Upon impact, the boar whirled around and began to charge me. I took a stance and got in the position for the "Horizontal" sword skill. I released the skill and slashed right across the boar's throat. But as my swing ended I went against my computer-assisted movements and shifted my stance slightly to activate a second skill. My sword traced a second line across the boar's weak point and it shattered into polygons. I turned around to face the group with the same sly smile. Contrary to my expectations, they did not stand in stunned silence.

"That was amazing!", the leader shouted.

"Seriously, that was really cool!", another one shouted patting me on the back.

Another put on a studious face and nodded as if he approved. The whole scene left me mildly surprised but laughing all the same.

"It's a technique called hit chaining. After you finish a skill it's possible to make an immediate shift in your stance in order to nullify the post skill movement lock. I've been practicing a while and it still only rarely works for me."

"I didn't really understand anything you just said but that's still incredible. Here, I haven't properly introduced myself. The name's Klein."

He pointed at himself with an infectious smile.

"This fellow over here is Dale, that rascal over there is Dynam and over there is Issin."

Dale was tall and seemed a bit rotund. He had curly black hair and had a kind smile on his face just like Klein. Dynam had a sly smile and his hair was covered by a bandana. He had a mustache and seemed tall compared to the rest of the group. Issin has brown spiky hair and seemed a bit more serious than the rest but still had a kind face. Overall, the group seemed to be about the same age and their personalities seemed to bounce off each other. It wasn't really necessary to tell me their names, as I could see their tags, but I decided to be polite and go along with it.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Kirito."

"Based on how good you seem to have gotten, I'd guess you're probably a beta tester", Dale stated, somewhat bluntly.

"Yeah", I replied nonchalantly, trying to seem like it didn't matter to me.

"Don't have any friends to play with?", Issin asked.

"No", I said surprised that they hadn't pressed the beta tester subject further.

"Well then, how about you teach us some of your secret beta tester skills", Dynam said, putting on expression that I assume was supposed to be studious but ended up looking more like he ate one too many burritos for lunch.

Despite Dynam's hilarious expression, this question was extremely off-putting for me. Never once had I been invited to hang out with someone else before.

"Oh, umm, sure", I replied without thinking, somewhat bashfully compared to my previous tone.

"Nice", Klein exclaimed and gave me a high five.

Throughout the next hour, I got to know the four of them fairly well. They were a group of college friends who had all stayed in line for three days to get a hard copy of SAO. Most of the time we spent together consisted of me showing them the skills I had refined for a month in the beta test while they poorly tried to copy me. Eventually, they wore themselves out and sat down on a hill that looked over the expansive field.

"Even if we do have a gun to our heads. SAO is a great experience. Makes me appreciate that I was born when I was", Klein sighed.

"It's not that big a deal", I said smiling.

"Oh, like you're one to talk. You're already level twelve, that's like five levels higher than any of us!"

"I guess you're right", I said sighing.

The group laughed and a moment of silence ensued.

"Hey Kirito, I wanted to ask you. Are you okay, on the other side I mean? You really don't look so good."

There it was, the question. Everyone who met me asked it at some point or another. My hollow, gaunt face and sickly childish body had been nearly perfectly replicated in SAO. Even if people tried to extend their sympathy not one of them had ever truly wanted to involve themselves.

"It's nothing important, just some minor complications in the real world", I replied trying to sound unconcerned.

"Look, man, I don't want to intrude or anything, but-"

I abruptly stood up.

"Oh crap, I have to go!", I exclaimed as if I had just remembered something, which to my credit I had.

"Wh-what?", Klein asked, sounding startled.

"I was supposed to meet someone earlier this morning but I completely forgot. I'm really sorry but I gotta go."

"O-oh, well, it was nice hanging out with you though. See you around?"

"Y-yeah", I said cautiously, a ran off.

Although I tried not to think about what Klein had said, my thoughts inevitably drifted back to it. I would be hard enough keeping comatose patients alive for long periods of time. Harder still to keep a body that was already malnourished in a stable condition. I cleared those thoughts and kept running towards a town called Medai. It was a fairly large village near the lake region of the first floor. Most of the buildings were made of stone with thatched roofs and in the center of town there was a large fountain that made for a good meeting area.

As I ran I scrolled through a message I had received earlier. It read: " _I'm guessing you're being a combat addict as usual. I'll be in town until sundown taking care of other business if you decide to show up. - Argo_ ". As it was still midday I had plenty enough time to make it to the village and I arrived at to the fountain in its center around mid-afternoon. Argo wasn't anywhere to be seen so I sat on a wooden bench and sent her a message stating that I had arrived. After waiting around for a few minutes, I decided to rest my head for a moment.

Before I knew it, I was awoken by a voice.

"It's not good to keep me waiting", someone said playfully.

It took me a moment to wake up and register what the voice had said. After a moment a recognized the figure. It was Argo. She was wearing her usual ratty brown cloak that covered her head with a small bit of her mousy brown hair that peaked out. She had a very small figure but I had never seen her without her cloak on so I couldn't tell much more. The most curious part of her appearance was the three streaks of face paint she always on her cheeks, which were reminiscent of whiskers. This had led to her being nicknamed "The Rat" by many players, including myself. She was an information broker and my most trusted source for changes from the beta and the overall status of Aincrad.

"My apologies, Argo", I replied in a mock formal voice, but it did nothing to hide the exhaustion in my voice.

Her sly smile flattened out a bit and she stared at me for a moment.

"How long were you up?"

"A little less than 24 hours by the time I fell asleep."

"Again", she sighed, and looked down a little.

Despite not knowing me for very long, Argo seemed to genuinely care about my wellbeing. If I thought back I've only known Argo for about a week...

 **3 Years: 228 Days: 9 Hours: 3 Minutes: 9 Seconds Remaining**

I walked up the hill towards the gates of the Town of Beginnings. I didn't really want to go back to the starting town; it really wasn't a pleasant place to be. Most people walking through the streets have their heads hung. The atmosphere of the place seems suffocating and threatens to drag you down.

Nevertheless, I had to replenish materials and take care of other business, and the Town of Beginnings was the only place some of the items I needed were available at this stage in the game. No matter how prepared I was, upon stepping into the town I was overwhelmed by the bleakness. Walking through the streets I saw players in various stage of grief. A person collapsed in an alleyway was softly whimpering. Another was taking his anger out on an NPC.

Looking into various shops and bars I saw people with their knees hugged to their chest. People crying and some just staring with blank stares. Besides a handful of players, the streets were virtually empty and even players who seemed stable were affected by the hopelessness in the air. I knew I needed to take care of my tasks quickly, otherwise...

I made my way to a blacksmith shop quickly. My goal was to enhance my Anneal Blade, the sword I got from the quest in Horunka village. Most weapons could have their statistics increased using enhancements. Every weapon has three statistics, sharpness, or damage power, weight, which affects the player's handling of the weapon, and durability, or how long the weapon will last. By giving a blacksmith a proper enhancement material a weapon the value of any one of these statistics could be increased. The Anneal blade could be enhanced up to eight times, close to double the next best sword on the floor. I had only brought enough material to enhance it once in sharpness and once in durability, so I paid the blacksmith and watched as he melted the materials and used them to enhance my sword. Both enhancements were a success and I left the shop.

For the next half an hour or so I continued to shop for other raw materials. I finish relatively quickly, but before I left, I returned to the town square and the black iron palace. Staring up at the palace, I was reminded of something Kayaba said when the death game began.

"If you perish within the game the NerveGear will simultaneously fry your brain."

The Black Iron Palace in the Town of Beginnings took on two different meanings on November 6th, 2022. The Chamber of Resurrection where players would respawn during the beta test was replaced by a large black monolith. 10000 names were carved onto the monolith, one for each player trapped in SAO. Every time a person left Sword Art Online for good, a name was scratched off the monolith. It just goes to show that sometimes you have to take something away before you realize just how much you took it for granted.

I entered the palace and walked up to the monolith. It was a depressing sight really, seeing how many people's names had already been crossed off, both in this world and in the real one. (Then I noticed something far more sinister, TommyBoi420's ban had been lifted). I gave a forced chuckle to tried and brighten my mood. Then I heard a scream.

The second implication was much less obvious. Behind the Black Iron Palace, there is an overlook that allows players to gaze into the cloudy void below the castle Aincrad. In the beta test, it was simply a place for players to enjoy the new world they had become a part of.

"There is but one way to escape Sword Art Online."

Even this rule has its exception. In fact, it's so simple that the thought wouldn't cross your mind unless you were forced to confront it as a possibility. Death. Most people see death as something to fear, something to run away from while you live only to be caught in its cunning grasp in the end. In fact, the will to live is so thoroughly carved into most people's mind that they would never consider it. Unless of course one saw death as superior to life.

Instinctively I ran around back to the overlook in the back of the palace, where I heard the voice coming from. Looking at the scene before me I understood what happened immediately. A group was crowded around a female player.

"S-she said she just wanted to take a look. But before I knew it she-she-she"

The girl broke down into hysterical sobbing.

I couldn't bear to watch any longer.

I quickly ran away from the scene and down the streets that would take me out of the Town of Beginnings. I knew I needed to get away from this town, but I managed to get my nerves under control after running for several minutes and I slowed down to a walk. Then I heard a voice.

"Psst, come over here."

I froze for a moment, that simple action had brought back...no I couldn't think about that right now. I calmed down for a moment after remembering that towns were safe zones and player versus player, otherwise known as PVP, was disabled.

"Don't worry, I just want to talk. Come over here", the voice repeated.

I recovered from my initial shock and stepped into the alley.

"Your name is Kirito, correct?"

"Yes", I replied, surprised.

"You were a beta tester", the feminine voice state, matter-of-factly.

I instinctively took a defensive position.

"Relax, I was one as well. I want to offer you a deal. I know you were one of the top players during the beta test. I'm an info broker and if you help me collect gather intelligence, I'll be willing to share what I learn with you."

 **3 Years: 221 Days: 6 Hours: 33 Minutes: 29 Seconds Remaining**

My thoughts returned to the present. After a bit of convincing I agreed to Argo and thus our deal was struck. Every few days the two of us will meet up and exchange information. I have no idea what she does with it. Probably sells it. As an added bonus, she had not brought up my sickly appearance once in the entire time I've known her. It's nice to feel like someone isn't constantly judging me based on my appearance.

"When do you find the time to sleep?", she said, sounding mildly surprised.

It was true, I didn't sleep much, only enough to keep myself functioning.

"I make the time", I replied, vaguely.

"Hmph, well what do you have for me?"

"The pathways through the canyons are completely different. I have the map data if you're interested."

"That's all?"

"Yeah, I've been spending most of the past few days in the canyons."

"Very well then, send me the data and I'll tell you what I've learned."

I nodded and began to manipulate my inventory. After a few short taps, I sent her the map data. A window popped up in front of her and she nodded.

"As of the last time I checked, the death count is up to just over 1300."

I made a small nod and let her continue.

"The difficulty of the Arachnid's nest was also increased."

For a minute or two I listened to her recite several changes from the beta test. Some small. Some large. Most of them didn't concern me. Eventually, she finished.

"Where are you staying?", she asked me.

"Still in Horunka."

She let out a low whistle, "You still have a while to go before you'll be able to sleep. Are you sure you don't want to rent a room here for the night."

I shook my head.

"Very well then. I won't be keeping you."

"See ya", I said curtly and stood up.

I ran out of town and across the grassy fields of the first floor. I almost wanted to go back out and explore the canyons further but even I knew that would do more harm than good. I had been up for almost a day before my nap earlier. Although you couldn't feel physical exhaustion in Aincrad, you still needed to sleep.

While I was running, my thoughts returned to a place I didn't want them to. I first thought about Klein and his group. It was promising that they were having fun despite their bleak situation. However, what I was more worried about was how I interacted with them. Never before had it been so easy for me to talk to people. All I had to do was act like I was superior to them. It was simple now that I thought about it. In this world I really was superior. I was one of the best players out there. There was no reason for me to cower from people as I had on the other side. I quickly shut off that train of thought though, even if I was better, that was no reason to look down on people.

My thoughts turned to the suicide I had witnessed a mere week ago, I hadn't wanted to remember it, but in my sleep-deprived state, I had less control over my thoughts than I thought. It was easier than I care to admit, imagining exactly what thought process brought her to that conclusion, but most could infer how it ended. The thought that death would be superior to life. Over half of the deaths in the two weeks since the official launch were the result of suicide. They tried to justify their actions using ignorance and disbelief. However, everyone heard Kayaba. Death in this world, was no different from death in the world in which we were born. In the end, they were only fooling themselves, all they really wanted was to escape. I wiped the notion from my brain.

Suicide wasn't the only thing that killed in SAO however. Another group of people had been killed simply due to inexperience. Unfortunately, most of the anger for those deaths were directed at the beta testers, and sadly, I couldn't deny several of their claims. I had claimed the easy quests and hunting spots early and done close to nothing to help the players. Now, I was paying the price, I couldn't go anywhere without worrying about my beta tester status being exposed.

Once again, I felt alienated with from the people trapped in the starting city. While they were struggling to regain hope, I was playing the game without a care in the world. I was having fun. Much as I hated to admit it, I loved being trapped in Sword Art Online. From the beginning, this really was my world, and here I had power that I could never hope to have in the other one.


	3. Chapter 3

**3 Years: 210 Days: 14 Hours: 47 Minutes: 47 Seconds Remaining**

The interior of the first-floor dungeon is damp and musty. It is only partially illuminated by imperfectly place torches. It winds around in a labyrinth fashion, slowly climbing up to the second floor of the massive castle. I'm currently roughly ninety percent of the way to the final boss room that connects the two floors. I've spent close to the last thirty hours in the dungeon, filling out my map data and attempting to find the boss room.

The official launch of SAO was close to a month ago, and unlike everyone around me, I had enjoyed every second of it. Every strike I made with my sword was a reminder of how at home I felt in this world. Fortunately, it seemed that eating more regularly within the game was filling out the face of my avatar. Why Kayaba would have programmed the system to do something like that I can't tell, but I'm just glad that I'm not getting as many weird stares. Even so, it would take far more than just eating more to undo what I had done to my body on the other side.

Then again, even if I still looked sickly, I hardly interact with humans outside of Argo and she wasn't one to ask questions. Which is why I currently found myself in a dilemma. I stood facing a cloaked figure who was fighting off a group of mobs called kobold sentinels. Since they guarded the first-floor dungeon they were a fairly difficult enemy to deal with. However, the figure was holding its own just fine. Although its movements were unrefined, it seemed to have natural talent.

Despite that, I could tell the figure wasn't going to last much longer. From the glimpses I got of the figure's blade I could tell it was about to break. Additionally, it was a low-tier rapier, not something that was very effective against the high-level monsters in this dungeon. Aside from their equipment, the rest of which was also beginner gear, the figure was clearly exhausted. I couldn't tell which one would break first the figure's gear or their spirit.

I was left with a choice to make. Normally when I encountered another player I would move along or head in a different direction without a word. If I stayed uniform with my routine whoever this figure was would most likely have their existence crossed out like so many others. As I stood in my indecision, the figure managed to finish their battle. The figure straightened itself up, breathing heavily, before promptly collapsing.

I sighed and made my decision.

 **3 Years: 210 Days: 13 Hours: 56 Minutes: 27 Seconds Remaining**

The girl under the hooded cloak slowly opened her eyes. She hadn't exactly been expecting to wake up again, under any circumstance. When she had finished off the last group of kobold sentinels she knew she had given everything she had. She had collapsed like so many others, resigning herself to the inevitable. However, when she woke up, she was greeted by an unexpected view. She was currently lying in one of the dungeon's safe areas; a roughly circular room with small braziers marking the entrance.

As she slowly rose, she noticed a boy sitting directly across from her. His clothes seemed to fit very loosely and the only armor he wore was a light chestplate. Her first thought was that he must have been passing by and dragged her to a safe area, but even though that was the most logical explanation, the idea just seemed ludicrous when inspecting his physique. She pegged him for around thirteen or fourteen and although his height seemed to match his age, the boy was far from healthy. Upon noticing that she had woken up he seemed to mumble something to himself.

"I'm sorry did you say something?", the girl asked the boy.

"Not really, just commenting that you were awake."

"Why am here?"

"Right to the point I see, for all you know I could have just found you here", the boy said in a mocking tone.

"Did you?"

"No, I carried you here after I found you passed out in a more dangerous portion of the dungeon. You should be more careful though, if I hadn't been walking by you very well could have been killed."

"Would that be such a bad thing?", she asked almost without thinking.

The boy stared at her in silence for a moment. He said and stood up.

"Very well then. If that's what you think, there's no use in saving someone who doesn't want to be saved."

That answer caught her completely off guard. His tone had gone from deadpan with a hint of playfulness to cold and flat in the matter of moment. She had implied exactly what she was doing in this dungeon and unlike any other player she had met in the game, this boy had done nothing to try to stop her. She watched as he started to walk off towards one of the many paths leading out of the safe area.

"Wait", she said.

The boy halted his motion.

"Yes?", he said, his tone back to normal.

"What's your name?", she asked.

Unlike most players she met, his name was not displayed below his cursor.

"Kirito", the boy replied.

She thought for a moment about how Kirito had reacted to her earlier statement and realized what he was trying to say. What would her parents think if she saw her now? They had always taught her to firm with what she believed and to never give in. It was strange, all it took was this boy's unconventional reaction to her death wish for her to realize how foolish she was being. She had no idea what had motivated the boy to act the way he had but she knew she couldn't keep acting like death was an acceptable way out of this game.

"I'm Asuna, and… I'll take that under advisement."

 **3 Years: 210 Days: 8 Hours: 33 Minutes: 13 Seconds Remaining**

In all honesty, Asuna's answer was relieving. From what I could tell I was dealing with someone suicidal. It appeared she wasn't in as bad of a condition as I first anticipated though. After she replied I had left her to sort herself out. I'm the last person who should be meddling in business like that. Now, several hours later, I was returning to the town of Tolbana. From what I'd heard a party of high-level players had found and been scouting the boss room. Today they had invited several dozen of the best players in order to plan for a boss raid. I had told the girl about the meeting in hopes that she would be able to do something productive with her abilities.

The town of Tolbana was surrounded by a low stone wall and the houses were made with tight limestone brickwork and tiled roof. The town is fairly large with three inns and a multitude of NPC houses and shops. I still had another hour until the meeting but I thought it couldn't hurt to get there early.

And then I was yanked into an alleyway. I immediately unsheathed my sword and went into a defensive position. Then I heard harmless laughter. After a moment I recognized that the figure in front of me was Argo.

"That gets you every time!", she cackled.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up", I said while putting my sword back into its sheath.

"You're on your way to the boss raid meeting, right? I had some business in town earlier and I happened to see you walking with your head in the clouds."

"Guess this is my fault then."

"Ha, I won't stop messing with you until it stops working", she said with a sly smile.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. So, what are you doing in Tolbana?"

"Speaking with the leader of the group who found the dungeon."

"Did he ask for information on the boss?"

"Of course. I gave it to him. I may want to protect my beta tester status but not enough to take away hurt a raid party's chances for beating the floor."

"Hmmm, quite surprising coming from you."

Argo raises her eyebrows.

"What exactly are you implying there."

"Oh nothing, well I'm off. I have some vague business to take care of."

"Hey, you-"

I cut her off as I turn the corner chuckling to myself. Despite how she seems, she's surprisingly sensitive about her self-image. I hear her running to catch up to me.

"You can't just walk off."

"What was it you said again, I won't stop messing with you until it stops working?"

"Yeah, yeah. I get it, don't dish it out unless you can take it."

We walk in silence for a moment.

"What's your plan for the first boss raid."

"Not sure yet. I get what you're implying and trust me when I say I intend to work for the good of the group, not just myself."

"Hmmm. surprising."

I let out an exasperated sigh.

"Are we just going to keep repeat ourselves?"

"You know me, I have to have the last laugh."

"Yeah, yeah...wait a second, not again."

Argo starts laughing mercilessly.

"But seriously, no showing off or going for secret bonuses, right?"

"Was it really that big of a problem."

She looks at me incredulously for a moment.

"YES! You seriously haven't caught on yet?"

Back in the beta, I had a habit of being...overly aggressive when fighting. I usually attempted to go for special bonuses for pulling off combos or getting the last attack.

"It appears I may have been making a few people just the smallest bit upset."

"Uh yeah, you think?!", she scoffs.

The two of us continue walking until we reach a mildly worn out amphitheater that is the location for today's meeting.

"I suppose this is it", I say in an overly dramatic voice laced with a mock accent.

"This is where we part, kind sir", Argo says, in a voice mimicking mine and then burst out laughing, "I don't know how you pull off talking like that with a straight face."

I chuckle a bit, "See you around, Argo..."

By the time I look up again she's already gone.

"Oh come on", I sigh to myself.

I turn back to the amphitheater. A fair group of people has already gathered for the meeting. I take a seat closer to the top and survey the group. A recognize a few of them as prominent top players that I occasionally see or hear about, but most of them are unknown to me. After a moment I decide to sort through my inventory before I notice something. I received a friend request. I open it to find my worst fear confirmed. It's from TommyBoi420. He found me. I can't just decline it, then he'll know I got it and will come after we with even more enthusiasm than before. But before I can do anything a player's voice pulls me back from my playful musings.

"I see that most of you have arrived, so let's get started."

I bring my attention back to the amphitheater and close the menu. A male player with dyed blue hair stands in the center talking to the audience in a relaxed tone. He wears fairly high leveled armor and I even recognize his breastplate from the beta version of the Arachnid's Nest dungeon. I turn my attention momentarily to the audience. It seems to have filled out a bit more. To my relief I see the cloaked girl named Asuna sitting on the opposite end of the raised stone seating.

"My name is Diavel, and I would like to personally like to thank you all for coming to discuss our plans for the boss raid. As many you have probably heard my party discovered the boss room yesterday!"

As Diavel pauses, there's a modest bit of clapping and cheering.

"Our current plan is to form the group today and attack it tomorrow afternoon."

There's a bit of murmuring in the crowd.

"I know many of you think this is premature and I encourage you to speak up if you disagree with our plans. Working together is essential if we want to succeed. In response to your concerns, however, usually, I would agree that in this situation scouting out the boss might be best. However, I think that this boss raid must be completed as soon as possible. Anyone who has returned to the Town of Beginnings will know that player morale is abysmal. Over the past month, over two thousand people have died. What's even more shocking though is that close to two-thirds of those deaths are the result of suicide."

Diavel is being perfectly honest about our situation, I know because it's one of the pieces of information Argo and I discuss regularly. The crowd's response is mixed, those who already knew about the miserable statistic have their heads hung and those who are just hearing how bad it really is, have a mixture of shock and horror on their faces.

"I know horrible that sounds, but that makes it more important than ever that we defeat this boss as soon as we can. Every day people are sinking into despair and hopelessness. As the strongest players right now, we need to lead the charge! It's our job to show people that this game can be beaten!"

His words are simple but effective, the crowd's mood had taken a one-eighty. The clapping and cheering starts slowly but quickly crescendos. He makes a good point but going in underprepared could have the opposite effect. It's just as important to beat the boss the first time as it is to do it quickly. If we lose it's likely it will make the situation even worse.

"Thank you, thank you. I'm glad you're on board, but I want to assure you, we're not going to be going in completely unprepared."

Wow, it's like he's reading my mind.

"We collaborated with some beta testers in order to obtain information on the boss."

The crowd tenses up at these words.

"You cooperated with the beta testers? They've done nothing but take advantage of us since this game started."

A male player with spiky orange hair stands up.

"We can't trust them to give us accurate information! Look at how they've acted for this past month. They take all the easy quests and hunting spots and leave the rest of us in the dust. You were just talking about how we need to work together to succeed, then hold the beta testers accountable for their actions."

The murmurs of agreement I hear in the crowd don't surprise me at all. Even if no one else was going to say it, most people here probably shared the same view. However, one player close to the front stands up in response.

"If I may interject, I think some of your claims are slightly off base."

The player who stood up has dark skin and a shaved head. The man probably stood two heads taller than me and his shoulder are much broader. Overall, he has a very imposing figure.

"I believe some of what you said is accurate. Many of the beta testers are exactly as you described them, manipulative and without a care for the well-being of the other players. However, that doesn't mean all of them are. We can't judge potential allies unfairly just because they're beta testers, in fact, that's denying us a potential source of information. I'm not saying you need to forgive the beta testers, but consider that some of them are truly trying to help. I've met the beta testers that Diavel's group got their information from and I can vouch that they're trustworthy."

The orange-haired player seems to want to say something but eventually backs down. The two both return to their seats and Diavel starts speaking again.

"Although I think that Kibaou made several valid points, I would rather not bring the issue of beta testers into this raid. As Agil said denying their help is nothing more than shooting ourselves in the foot."

Diavel seems to have the crowd back on his side as he continues talking.

"According to the beta testers the boss Illfang, the Kobold use an ax and buckler and only uses basic ax-type sword skills. This means that our best bet is probably going to be rotating groups of tanks and DPS fighters. My party will be group A as most of us are DPS fight and along with a group B, composed of tanks, which Agil has volunteered to lead, we will take the front. We'll form group C and D to attack from the flank, these two groups will attack in order to create openings for the A and B groups as well as for additional damage. Any volunteers to for these group?"

Diavel efficiently takes the volunteers and organizes them based on their stats and their previous party members. He must have been playing MMOs for a while considering how well he is able to devise this plan.

"That takes care of the groups who will attack the boss directly. The beta testers have informed us that the boss spawn minions called Ruin Kobold Sentinels. Our final three groups E, F and G will keep the Kobold sentinels occupied. Kibaou has volunteered to lead these group. Let's get the rest of you grouped up now."

Diavel returns to grouping players. I sit for a while in admiration of his skills at leading before I notice he his walking up to me.

"I notice you aren't joining any groups", he states.

"Oh, um, yeah..."

"Look I'm going to be straight with you. I know about your reputation as a beta tester and I know you haven't been doing much to help the new players."

I tense up quite a bit.

"However, I'm glad you came to help today. I know you're a skilled player so you'll definitely be an asset to us in the coming battle. But I also know that you have a habit of prioritizing your own gain. I want to use you in the frontal assault group but I need you to promise that you will stick to my plan and not try to be a hero."

"I understand, I promise I won't do anything to hinder the frontal assault group", I say out of relief.

"Okay, thanks. Come and meet me after we finish the meeting."

As Diavel returned to taking care of other things, I looked around the crowd. The player named Asuna had gotten grouped into one of the sentinel groups, and she seemed to be getting along fairly well.

"Alright, now that everyone has been put into parties, there's one more thing I would like to mention. According to the beta testers, once Illfang loses three health bars he will switch from his basic weapon to using a talwar which uses basic one-handed curved sword skills. When we get to this point our strategy will remain the same although we will have to remain even more cautious. Your group leaders will inform you further about the specifics of our strategy. We will regroup tomorrow two o' clock. Until then do whatever you can to prepare for the battle tomorrow."

Groups of players leave the amphitheater, presumably to discuss strategy further. Remembering my promise to Diavel I walk up to his party. Diavel notices my approach.

"There you are Kirito. I'd like to meet my party. This is Contentorth, BizzareJackson, Cyanide, Matrix, Piper, and Shiya. Guys this is Kirito, he's going to be helping us."

Surprisingly none of them seem to distrustful and they welcome me to the group as Diavel sends me a party invite.

"Now if I could get back to the boss raid, our job is to switch with the group B members when there's opening in boss's defenses. Group B will be taking most of the damage while C and D attempt to stun the boss or knock it off balance, when those opportunities arrive, we'll switch with group B and use our most powerful attack to lower the boss's health as much as possible. Whenever our health gets too low, we'll back off to a safe distance and use potions to recover. The goal is to always have at least half of our party fighting at once."

"Sounds good", the one name Jackson says.

"No complaints here", Matrix agrees.

"In that case, what do you think we should do now?", Shiya asks.

"I say we head back to the Inn and relax. No need to over prepare". Contentorth says.

"Fine with me", Diavel says. "By the way, where are you staying Kirito?"

"Oh, um, a farmhouse on the outskirts of town."

"Cool, do you want to come back to the inn we're staying at for a little while? You could stand to get to know us a little before tomorrow", Piper asks.

"Sure, I guess."

I curse myself because for some reason Diavel and his party are hard for me to talk to and getting into uncomfortable situations is the last thing I want to do. There's nothing like Klein's group from a couple weeks ago.

"Cool, follow us then."

I follow the group back to one of the bigger inns in the town. The bottom floor of the building serves as a tavern and so we all sit down at a table in the corner. The group begins talking about trivial bits of information involving quests and battles that they heard about. Normally, I'm constantly on some sort of quest or grinding for XP so just sitting around with these people was making me feel fidgety. It was already fairly late in the day so after sitting around watching them for a couple hours I told them I had to leave. Diavel came to see me off. After we left the building, he asked me a question.

"Is there a problem, you barely talked at all?"

"Not particularly", I said ambiguously.

"Look I'm sorry if I made you nervous when we were talking earlier."

As I suspected, Diavel is really good at reading people.

"It's just… have you been to the Town of Beginnings, recently?", Diavel continues.

"I've gone back only a couple of times since the game started."

"Then you must have seen how miserable everyone is there."

"Of course."

Diavel sighs and looks up toward the ceiling of the floor above us.

"You must have realized it too. How important it is that we beat the first floor. It's been a whole month and we've made close to no progress. It's just going to keep getting worse if we can't give the players some hope."

"I saw someone jump off the edge last time I went to the Town of Beginnings", I add on a whim.

"I'm sorry, that must have been horrible. Look... many people might not view it like this, but this first battle crucial. We have to prove that this game can be beaten and we have to do it as quickly as possible. I hope that if we can, we won't have to live our lives in this game in fear. That's why I was concerned about what you would do."

I looked at Diavel in surprise, I had guessed that he was aware of our precarious situation but I didn't know he had such a clear vision for the future of the game.

"Diavel, I'll do what I can to make sure that this raid is successful. Despite my reputation, I hope you can trust that I want something similar to you."

"Thanks, Kirito. See you tomorrow then?"

"Yep."

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 4 Hours: 13 Minutes: 37 Seconds Remaining**

Together with Diavel's party, I walk through the first-floor dungeon to the boss room. So far, we have had no trouble dealing with the monsters that spawn throughout the dungeon. That was until a couple of kobold jump out from behind a corner. Although they were not difficult to defeat Piper and Shiya nearly fell over out of surprise and Matrix lets out a small scream. Needless to say, the kobolds weren't long for this world.

"Congrats, you've fallen victim to horror's most overused cliche, the jumpscare", I respond dryly.

Diavel chuckles and Jackson starts to laugh.

Piper looks at me with an annoyed look and says, "I liked you better when you weren't talking."

Jackson and Diavel started laughing even harder. As we continue, I look back on the other parties. Asuna ended up in Kibaou's party, and I catch Kibaou glaring at me from behind. I suppose he probably guesses I'm a beta tester. Matrix notices where I'm looking.

"Don't let Kibaou get to you. He's especially distrustful of beta testers because his entire party got killed as a result of faulty information a beta tester gave him."

"That certainly explains a lot. That's really awful though, did the beta tester give him faulty information on purpose?"

"The beta tester confessed after the fact."

"That's horrible! I might not have gone out of my way to help anyone but at least I didn't try to harm anyone intentionally."

"That's true, but the way I see it, many of the beta testers are just as scared as we are. I don't think that they're doing it maliciously, but rather they're trying to do anything they can to survive."

"Hmm, that would be nice."

"You say that like you think I'm wrong."

"Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are people out there like that. But you can't just assume that everyone is a good person."

Matrix looks at me curiously for a moment before replying.

"I suppose."

We both fall quiet, but the silence doesn't last very long as the door to the boss room becomes visible. The boss raid party of close to fifty people approaches the door and Diavel turns around to address them.

"It's time everyone. After a month of struggling, we will finally advance. We will show the players that this game can be beaten. I'll give you a few minutes to make sure all of your items are in order, but there is no need to delay any further than that."

I marvel once again at Diavel's ability to talk to a crowd. Everyone lets out a cheer and then moves to check their inventories. Although I'm confident everything is in place, I look through mine as well just to give myself something to do.

Before I know it Diavel stands before the massive door and pushes it open. The room in front of us is a massive hall. Pillars line both side and a royal red pathway leads up to a throne on a raised platform at the end of the hall. Behind the throne, I can see stairs snaking upwards to the next floor. I know from experience we won't be able to climb them until the boss is defeated though. As the group enters torches on the pillars light in a sequential fashion providing a deep red lighting. When they reach the end of the hall Illfang becomes visible. He's coated in blue and gray fur which fits tightly over his massive girth. The creature is at least twice as tall as Agil and sports a snout rather than a mouth. His red eyes practically glow as he leaps across the room to meet us. Our forces quickly assemble into formation, groups B, C and D surrounding the boss and E, F and G moving into place to take of the sentinels which have just begun spawning.

Our group waits as the other main attack groups counter Illfang's attack in an attempt to knock him off balance or stun him. Momentarily I see an opening and the group B member yells "switch". We charge forward and unleash a horizontal skill across the lower part of the Illfang's stomach. I almost try to chain the skill but remembering my promise to Diavel and I yell switch after waiting out the brief post skill delay. I quickly fall into line with the patterns of the boss and we slowly manage to whittle down his health without any hiccups. Most of our main offense is able to stay in battle with only a few rotating out for potions occasionally. Diavel's team works really well together and additionally, they seem to have cooperated with Agil's team before, based on the way I've seen them interacting. Needless to say, it reminds of one of the things I like most about MMOs, the feeling of working together to achieve a common goal, something I was never able to do in the real world.

Eventually, I notice that my health is getting dangerously low. I decide to back off and take a potion.

"Diavel I'm backing off to take a potion!"

"Go ahead", he says, looking at my health bar.

I dance backward and use one of my restorative potions. In SAO, potions regenerate health slowly. Eventually, health crystals are unlocked, which allows someone to regenerate health immediately, but those are hard to obtain even when after are unlocking, so it's generally best to stick with health potions until you're a higher level. As I heal, I survey the battle. The sentinel groups are doing a good job of taking care of Illfang's minions. I see the girl named Asuna execute a well-placed jab with her rapier and, satisfied, I turn back to Illfang himself. I know I need to get back into battle as soon as I finish healing so that I can help with the final push. Just then I notice Diavel making the strike that brings Illfang down to one health bar. Illfang lets out a roar and throws away his ax and buckler. That's when the program deviates from the beta test. Illfang unsheathes a nodachi instead of a talwar. My stomach drops. Although the nodachi is the same type of weapon it's more advanced and can use higher caliber curved sword skills.

"Watch out, that's not a Talwar it's a Nodachi!"

Upon hearing this Diavel retreats and lets the other groups continue looking for an opening. Except that no one was prepared for the advanced sword skills that Illfang is using. With only a few strikes, Illfang manages to break the formation and scatter groups B, C and D. In the midst of the chaos Diavel desperately grapples for control of the situation. He orders the players with enough health to group up and gives the others enough time to use potions. Although he manages to form a defense, the group isn't able to properly hold back Illfang. Slowly the last line of defense is pushed back. I curse myself that I let my health get so low. It still isn't high enough for it to be safe for me to return to battle, but I feel like I should be helping. If nothing else I could give them some quick tips on evading the deadlier strikes. Even so, my instincts keep me in place. I'm not even at half health left, going in now would be suicidal.

Then I watch in horror as it happens. Diavel is caught in a post-skill movement lock and Illfang activates a deadly three hit combo.

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 42 Seconds Remaining**

Diavel's body is flung through the air. As he lands, I take off running. It only takes a few seconds but by the time I get to Diavel, his health has already reached the red zone.

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 34 Seconds Remaining**

His health points reach zero and he tells me something in a choked voice.

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 33 Seconds Remaining**

No.

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 32 Seconds Remaining**

Wait.

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 31 Seconds Remaining**

This isn't how it's supposed to go.

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 30 Seconds Remaining**

You were supposed to show the player that the game could be beaten. You were supposed to lead them...

 **3 Years: 209 Days: 3 Hours: 41 Minutes: 29 Seconds Remaining**

[Player dafadfea-ef2a-4b00-beeb-44b622504371 has died.]

Diavel's limp form glows white and shatters into polygons. Somewhere in a hospital, another EKG monitor flatlines. I kneel there with a slack expression. Without their leader, the last line of defense is about to be broken. Sorry Diavel, but it looks like I'm going to have to try to play the hero after all.

I dash up to the boss, straight past the nearly broken line of defense and using all the skills at my disposal in an attempt to defend against the boss. It doesn't last long though. After parrying no more three swings I see a strike I can't avoid. Except that it never connects. The player named Agil parries the hit and the remnants of his group run up to help. From the other side, Kibaou's group dashes up help, having finished off most of the sentinels. Together we make a final push until finally, the girl named Asuna sends out one more rapier strike that pierces the boss right through the stomach. It HP falls to zero and Illfang shatters into polygons.

The room remains in silence for a moment before the entire party breathes a collective sigh of relief. Then, I get congratulated as if I'm some sort of hero.

The player named Agil tells me, "Man that took guts, but it bought me just enough time to finish healing. We couldn't have done it without you."

There's a small bit of cheering for me.

"We couldn't have done it without Diavel either."

The room falls back into silence and we turn around to see Jackson staring me down.

"Why didn't you tell us about the Nodachi."

Jackson pauses and shakes for a moment.

"You're just another beta tester, aren't you? You didn't care if we made it out alive, did you?!."

Matrix stands up and stares me down as well.

"Maybe you were right, I wanted to give you and the other beta testers the benefit of the doubt, but maybe you are just as bad as the others."

Everyone stares at me as if they're seeing me for the first time.

Then Kibaou speaks up, "He's probably not the only one here either. Which means that every one of the beta testers in this room withheld information. This is why I was worried in the first place. We shouldn't accept help from the people who have already shown that they are willing to lie and manipulate us, and just look at where it got us."

This situation is going south fast. If this keeps up the players might turn on the beta testers, especially Argo, who gave them the information in the first place. I have to do something. Diavel wanted us to work together to beat this game and if don't do anything the players are going to turn on each other. But… I'm scared. Being faced with all these people staring me down I'm only able barely able to talk in a quiet voice.

"Not many would have known that was a nodachi. I only know because I made it to the tenth floor in the beta test. They were an integral part of the challenge on that floor so I had those skills memorized."

Jackson speaks up again, "Then why didn't you do anything. I saw you just standing back there as Diavel was killed."

Jackson was right. I curse myself for not being able to help, I had plenty of time to run up and at least tell them how to handle the skill. Matrix was right, just like everyone else I was scared for my life and because of that I couldn't act at the crucial moment. Kibaou was right, I'm no better than the player who gave his party faulty information. So... I turn away and leave. I run away from my problems. It's what I've always done. It's the only thing I know how to do. Part of me wants to stay and try to fix the situation but I'm scared. Scared of the prospect of having to face my own mistakes. So, I walk away. People throw insults at me, they blame me for Diavel's death. I glance back to see the player named Asuna with a disgusted look on her face. I speed up and climb the stairs at the end of the hall. I push open the doors to the second floor and look down on the world that had turned its players against me.


	4. Chapter 4

**3 Years: 205 Days: 10 Hours: 33 Minutes: 35 Seconds Remaining**

*Shing*

My sword traces a horizontal path across my vision. As I reach the end of my swing, I attempt to pull my sword back into a second activation stance. However, I'm slightly off with my timing and I get locked in post-skill movement delay. After about a second of stun, I pull my sword back to the starting position again and let out another horizontal strike. This time I manage to correctly place the second strike and my sword cuts back to the right. I try for a third skill but as expected I can't pull it off. Despite all the practice I've been doing with hit chaining I can still only pull it off every one in ten attempts and I've only succeeded at chaining three hits a handful of times. Additionally, I haven't leveled up my one-handed sword skill enough to have more skills than the basic vertical strike, horizontal strike, and simple thrust. SAO's system is somewhat unique in that combo hits are unlocked as you level up your sword skills rather than stringing together chains of hits as is done in most RPGs. Chaining skills is a method of nullifying the post skill movement lock to string hits together in a more traditional method. However, it's far more difficult than just using larger combos, but it also has the added bonus of being able to move immediately after activating a skill which reduces your chance of taking damage in between attacks.

It has been four days since the clearing group defeated the first-floor dungeon. Ever since then I have been largely avoiding people, I rented space out of a cabin on the edge of the second floor in order to limit my encounters with others. The one and only time I returned to a town, players immediately started shooting me looks and badgering me. I'm hoping isolation will help me slip from the players collective conscience. So now that avoiding people has become a necessity, I've been constantly grinding for experience, so hopefully, I'll be able to unlock larger combos soon.

As I continue to attempt skill chains, I realize that Sword Art Online's systems are fairly accurate to life. Namely that skills are leveled up by constant use. In this way, SAO diverges significantly from the standard RPG model. It seems like Kayaba designed this game specifically to mimic real life. It makes me question how he got financial support for the game though. Although many of the systems are accurate to life, they make for a very tedious video game. That and the complete lack of a support class in combat means that a lot of people wouldn't play the game. Kayaba must have had an enormous dev team. It makes me wonder how he was able to make all of SAO systems the way he did. Someone should have noticed how impractical this was as an actual video game. Unfortunately, without any more to go on than that, I had to file it away under the ever-growing list of oddities about SAO and Kayaba.

"Well look at what we have here."

I spin around to find Argo approaching me. Unlike our past encounters though, my stance remains on the defensive. Argo comes to a stop.

"The fact that you don't trust me hurts Kirito, it really does. But, seriously relax."

I sigh and let some of the tension out of my shoulders. Then I put my sword back in its sheath.

"I see you're off sulking again."

"In my defense, everyone in towns hates me now."

"Yeah, sulking."

"Okay, fine."

"Although I must admit, your ability to chain skills is showing marked improvement. Then again I don't really have anything to compare it against since no one else seems to think it has any importance at all."

"For me, it's mostly about nullifying the post-skill movement lock."

"Well, if you find a trick to make it easier make sure I hear about it first. Otherwise its impractical for use by anyone who isn't willing to practice for hours on end."

"Leave it to you to immediately find a way to make money out of something."

"Hey, it's what I do."

I chuckle a little bit before relaxing completely.

"So how are you progressing", Argo asks.

"I've been grinding on field mobs a bit in less visited dungeons. I've gotten quite a few levels on my skills. I haven't really dared to go into any of the bigger dungeons though."

She stares at me for a moment.

"Well, you seem to have taken hiding in the wilderness seriously, but seriously does it have to be grinding no matter what the circumstance."

"What else would I do?"

"I don't know relax, enjoy your surroundings, explore. I can count on one hand the number of times I've encountered you and you weren't fighting."

"I might as well get better while I have the opportunity to."

She stares at me with a neutral expression for a moment.

"What is it?"

She sighs and replies, "Nothing. On a different note, since you've been out of the loop you probably haven't heard of Martial Skills."

"Martial Skills?", I reply more surprised by her tone shift rather than the unfamiliar term.

"They're skills that use your body rather than your sword."

"Seriously?"

"Yep, most of the skills involve dodging and jumping, but a lot of the moves are lifted from actually karate and taekwondo techniques."

"You can get a basic set of skills from a master at the top of that plateau. They level up pretty much the same as sword skills. I do feel like there are some basics that were left out, though. Hopefully, the game will fill them on later floors."

"That's a game changer, quite literally in fact. That'll increase variety in the combat system by quite a bit."

"Well personally I think just doing backflips and acrobatics would be cool but that works too", Argo replied shaking her head. "Now, I've given you some information I'm gonna need something in return."

I raise an eyebrow and put a sarcastic frown on my face.

"Come on, you know how I do business."

"Oh alright, Trembling Cows and Tauruses got nerfed. I'm personally happy with that change, they were fairly overpowered in the beta. Unfortunately, the bug-themed creatures got buffed."

"Of course they did", she sighs. "Got anything else?"

"Not really, those mobs are in ample supply so they're easy enough to find while avoiding people."

"I'll take it, I guess. I've got to head back to town now. I have a meeting with some players. You sure you don't want to come back."

"I think it's best if I stay away for a while."

"Okay then, I'll drop by sometime soon."

Argo turns around and walks off towards the town while I turn back to continue practicing skill chaining.

 **3 Years: 204 Days: 21 Hours: 55 Minutes: 5 Seconds Remaining**

I weave my way up the slope of a large plateau. It's currently the dead of night which means that hopefully even though this is a more populated region of the floor, most people will have cleared out. I'm currently on the northern half of floor two, which is a plains area dotted with plateaus. I'm currently climbing up to a group of several such plateaus that holds more difficult mobs. It also houses the Bullbous Bow, a semi-difficult field boss. As much as I'd like to challenge him, field bosses require at least a full party.

As I crest the plateau, I'm met with a semi-dense forest of acacia trees. Crouching down I beginning snaking through the forest. I stay light on my feet and move as quickly and silently as possible. If I maintain this while avoiding detection, I can level up my stealth skill, and plus, at the moment it's an advantage for me to stay out of sight, both from players and monsters.

I spend the next three hours grinding for experience and getting surprise attacks on various mobs. I take a few on directly here and there in order to find any differences in their attack patterns or AI. After that, I decided to move onto another part of the map and start heading towards one of the rope bridges that connect the group of plateaus. Coming out of the forested area I approach the bridge...only to find a group that has almost finished crossing it from the other side. They're lighting their way with torches and I only catch a glimpse of their faces but it's enough for me to recognize two faces. Jackson and Matrix.

I turn tail and run. I haven't spent much time leveling up my speed so I have no idea if I'll even be able to outrun them. All that matters to me though, is the fact that I'm running. I hear their voices shouting towards me, gradually getting more frustrated and angrier. Thoughts fly through my head as I run. I shouldn't be running, I should face the consequences of my actions, but doing that will force me to face myself, and in more ways than one, I don't look pretty in the mirror.

My progress is halted as I see two torches faintly in exactly the direction. My current character build was designed for strength and stealth. It made sense that their party would have members that could overtake me. I whirled around in circles, but all I found was an evenly spaced ring of faintly glowing torches. I felt my anxiety rising as the lights gradually became clearer. Unconsciously I find myself in a defensive position. Then the group comes into view. It seems that only Jackson and Matrix are in this party. The rest of Diavel's party is nowhere to be seen.

"Kirito", Jackson greets me without a drop of emotion in his voice.

After a moment I get my composure back under control.

"Jackson."

"Haven't seen you in a while. I'll spare you any nonsense. You should know what I want."

I remain faced forwards Jackson and scan the situation with my peripheral vision. Matrix has a barely hidden look of disgust on his face. Although I don't recognize any other faces, they all have higher level equipment than me so trying to run or fight is out of the question. My only option is to continue this conversation.

"You want revenge for Diavel right? I can't bring him back and I can't go back and change anything. What do you want, items or money as compensation?"

I put up a brave facade and try to defend myself. Inside I'm in turmoil. I want so much to run and hide but I'm nothing more than a cornered animal right now.

Jackson stares me down for a second more and then sighs.

"I suppose you've learned nothing", Diavel replies disappointment in his voice. "You misunderstand my intentions entirely. I don't want revenge, I want you to take responsibility."

These words hit hard. I almost lose my composure. My mind is a jumbled mess. Thoughts and ideas that I've pushed down for so long threaten to consume me. I can't do anything but listen.

"Diavel didn't want us to turn on each other. He wanted us to make each other better. He wanted people to be responsible for their actions and to work to help others!", Jackson voice momentarily reaches shouting volume. He calms down quickly and pauses for a moment, "Why did you let him die. You could've saved him. You knew all of those skills. Instead, you stood and watched as he tried to reform our failing defense."

My body tenses up and I try with every fiber of my being to restrain the maelstrom of emotions in my brain. Everything he says cuts into my psyche. Jackson stares me down waiting for me to say something.

"Well? Well?! Am I wrong? Are you anything but a coward? Did you think of anyone but yourself?! ANSWER ME! YOU'RE NOTHING MORE THAN A SPINELESS AND SELFISH HUMAN WITH NO CARE FOR ANYONE BUT YOUR-"

I feel something inside me snap. My sword goes flying forward. It cuts across Jackson. Once, twice, three times, before I'm viciously sent flying backward. Jackson's health decreases to less than a quarter. I land on my stomach right back in the middle of their trap. As I rise, the cursor above my head changes from green to orange. The mark of a player who had intentionally hurt another.

Everything is silent for a moment. Then Matrix shouts:

"How could you, you bast-"

He is cut off by a loud sound. Then the sound repeats. Strange as it seems, the sound is clapping. From a particularly dark part of the forest, a figure emerges. He stands taller than any of the other players in the clearing and is fairly slim. His hair is a silvery blue and his eyes are a deep gray, like mine. He keeps clapping for a moment and then I notice his orange cursor. To Jackson's credit, he stands up and stares down the newcomer, despite his lack of health.

"What are you doing here, Iota?"

"I was merely doing some late-night grinding. Then I overheard this little scuffle. At first, I thought it was extortion", it's at the point that his lips curl up into a crooked smile. "Then I realized that it was much more than that."

"What do you want", Jackson asks, holding his ground.

"I want you to leave him alone", the player named Iota says. "You have no right to ask for anything from him."

Jackson is stunned for a moment before regaining his composure.

"Do you have any idea what he's done?"

"No, and that doesn't matter, because, despite all you've accused him of, you've never truly tried to understand him."

Jackson face has an incredulous look on it, "Oh, I understand plenty."

Iota sighs, "I suppose you don't get it. Oh well. In that case, I'll skip the pleasantries. If you won't leave him alone, I'll force you to."

A scary look crosses Iota's face. One that seems almost sadistic. Jackson motions to his party and they all draw offensive positions.

"Are you sure you want to do this?", Jackson asks. "It's one against seven."

Almost before Jackson even finishes his sentence Iota dashes forward. His blade is drawn in an instant and he stops it just short of Jackson's throat. It takes me a second to register the glowing yellow I saw overtake his feet as Jackson was talking. What's even more impressive is that his feet land in a position that keeps Jackson completely off balance.

"Put your weapon down slowly. Move even a bit more than that and I will continue my strike."

Jackson nods and slowly lowers both hands. As he lets his blade fall, he flexes his hand just slightly. All of his party members rush forward. Iota is not taken off guard for a second. His back-leg glows red and he twists his body. The back of his heel impacts one of the player's temples, sending him sprawling. He then jumps forward and strikes two of the others across the stomach forcing them to back off. He turns to face the other four including Matrix and Jackson, who has just picked up his weapon.

"Surprise attacks won't work anymore", Jackson taunts him.

"No, but it's a mistake to think that those are my only tactics."

Iota dashes forward once more. The four begin to activate a sword skill but Iota drops low. He sweeps one of them off their feet and then jumps through the gap that that player's fall created. In a swift motion, he drops his sword, removes some sort of dagger from his boot and throwing it into Matrix's lower back. He then picks up his sword and holds it against the fallen player's throat.

"I'm sure you realize that a strike to a player's vital point won't heal on its own. If you surrender now, you should be able to stabilize your party."

Jackson clenches his teeth for only a moment before lowering his sword.

"Fine", he growls.

Iota relaxes and releases his hostage before walking over to me.

"Come on", he says holding out his hand.

It takes a moment to realize I'm still on my knees. I grab his hand and he pulls me up.

"Follow me", he says, very softly compared to the hardness in his voice earlier.

Not knowing what else to do I follow him into the woods. Looking back, I can see Jackson treating his wounded. He lifts his head up for a just a moment to glare daggers at me. I turn away and focus on the back of Iota's head. After we are out of earshot, Iota turns his head back towards me and asks me:

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah..."

"I must say I'm impressed. I got the basic gist of what happened. You're the one every is blaming for the death on the first boss raid, right?"

"That's me..."

"That was probably the first time you've intentionally hurt someone, isn't it? You shouldn't blame yourself for anything that happened."

At this point, we reach the edge of the plateau. The moon is visible in the silver of sky between floor and ceiling of the second floor.

"It's really my fault though. I'm a coward and I should be punished. For hurting Jackson and letting Diavel die."

Iota pauses for a moment.

"Meet me back here tomorrow morning at ten. There's something you need to understand, but to be honest I'm exhausted at the moment."

He turns around to face me.

"O-okay..."

"See you tomorrow, then."

He turns back around and starts descending the slope. After watching him for a moment I take a slightly different path down the plateau. I clear away all of my thought and let my feet carry me back to the cottage on the edge of Aincrad.

 **3 Years: 204 Days: 13 Hours: 37 Minutes: 57 Seconds Remaining**

I wake up groggily. Sunshines directly through the cottage window meaning it's around eight. The event of the previous come back to me and I start shaking. How could I have hurt someone else? There's now a marker over my head displaying that fact to the world. Even if it will return to normal after 72 hours, I have permanently and irreversibly attacked another player.

Then I think back to what the silver-haired player said.

You shouldn't blame yourself for anything that happened.

I find it strange that I truly want to understand what he meant by that. Can I truly trust him though? After seeing that sadistic smile and his orange cursor. I weigh my options for only a moment before I make my decision.

Only a few minutes later I find myself trekking across the savannah. In part, I think I'm clinging onto the notion that I'm not to blame. That I can escape my guilt. So, I hike for half an hour to the plateau where he told me to find him. The player named Iota is exactly where he said he would be. When he sees me approaching, he walks up to meet me.

"Yo!", he says waving a hand.

"Hi", I reply, unsure.

"Glad you could make it."

"Yeah, about what you said yesterday..."

"Walk with me."

I don't know exactly why, but I trusted him. I fall into step beside him.

"Do you think you could explain to me what happened during the raid."

I ended up telling him the whole story starting from meeting Diavel and up until I walked away from everyone. After I finish, he looks at me with an empathetic look for a moment.

"People have a tendency to search for something to blame. They're so consumed by their own shortcomings and failures that they project those feelings onto others. Everyone in that room refused to admit their own powerless and instead forced you to take the blame."

"But if I was able to act, I could have saved him."

"Maybe you could have, maybe you would have failed, maybe you would have just made it worse. What's really important here is that you're thinking like that. You're able to recognize your own shortcomings. What you're doing wrong is dwelling on your failure. What's done is done, what you need to do is move on, and not let others push their own guilt and sadness onto you."

I take some time to process what he's saying. What if I am letting people project their guilt onto me. In the end, I was following the plan and even if I had tried to help who knows if Diavel or any of the others would have been able to adapt to the new techniques fast enough to prevent deaths. Maybe I was letting others use me and push me around. In fact, maybe I've been doing that for my whole life.

"In that case, how do I stop other people from using me."

Iota smiles at me.

"You need to learn self-confidence. That all starts with this."

Iota motions in front of him. I turn forward to see the main settlement of floor two, Urbus. I was so engaged in our conversation that I didn't even realize where we were going. Urbus lies in an excavated, crater-like depression, on a flat-topped mountain. The houses and inn are all made using a combination of sandstone and acacia wood.

"But I still have an orange marker", I say somewhat weakly.

"You're missing the point", Iota replies. "You need to own that. You need to walk into town and show everyone that you aren't afraid of them of the labels they put on you. And let's be honest, Jackson and his party have probably already spread the word regardless."

I stare down at the town for a few moments longer. I know that the second I enter Urbus the I'll get nothing but dirty looks. People already hate me enough and with my orange marker, things are only going to get worse. Although, maybe Iota is right. Maybe I'm just letting others opinions of me influence how I act. At that moment I make my decision.

"Alright, I'll do it."

"That's the spirit."

Iota takes off and leads me down into the town. It doesn't take long for people to notice me and Iota. We both have orange cursors so we naturally draw attention. Then the whispers and dirty looks start. No one dares to say anything yet, but I feel intense pressure from all the people staring at me.

"Do we have any explicit purpose here?", I ask nervously, hoping to leave as soon as possible.

"Well I have to get my sword enhanced but that's about it. Need anything?"

"Not really."

"Alright then."

We continue walking in silence for a while. Then I hear someone shout out at us.

"Scum!"

I whip my head in the direction it came from but I can't tell who shouted at us.

"Just keep walking. Remember what I said, this is about not letting others push you down."

I turn to face forward again and try to raise my head a bit. As we continue to walk, I do my best to block out everyone staring at us. I let their faces fade away, and, before I know it, we arrive at the blacksmith shop in town.

"You wait outside. This won't take long and plus, it'll give you some time to practice", Iota smiles.

"Okay", I say, with some confidence.

As Iota heads into the blacksmith shop, I take a seat on a public bench. I continue to let people's faces recede from my vision. I tell myself that they have nothing on me. I tell myself that I won't let others push their opinions onto me, and slowly I feel a great pressure lift off of me. In fact, I let my surroundings leave me so completely that I don't notice the person right in front of me.

"Kirito?", a male voice says.

It takes me a moment to snap out of it. The player in front of me is Klein. I haven't seen him since we first met on floor one but I notice that his equipment has gotten a lot better.

"Klein", I say levelly.

"It's good to see you again man. I haven't heard from you since we first talked."

"I guess not", I reply nonchalantly, "I've been pretty busy lately."

"Yeah, I guess that's how it is being a top player. Oh, guess what. I tried out some of your suggestions and they've been working really well for me."

"Really?", I say, mildly surprised. I hadn't really gotten the impression that he had been paying very much attention when I was giving him tips.

"Yeah, we're all getting a lot better with sword skills. I'm still pretty miserable at chaining skills but everything else is getting better. Thanks a bunch."

"No problem", I reply, smiling.

"Hey man, I hope you don't mind me asking but I heard some rumors about you. Something about you being responsible for a player's death during the boss fight?"

I sigh and ready myself, "Don't listen to that. People are just pushing their own guilt onto me. Unfortunately, none of us could've done anything."

"Oh, glad to hear your side of the story. This guy named BizzareJackson was saying some pretty nasty stuff about you earlier. By the way, what's up with your cursor. It looks orange now."

I freeze up. Much as I'm doing my best to maintain my confidence, dealing with what I did to Jackson still scares me.

"He deserved it", I mutter under my breath.

"What do you mean."

"I mean that Jackson deserved what I did to him. He can't just push me around to make himself feel better about Diavel. If he wants to try to force his ideas onto me, I'm going to push back."

The final bits of guilt that hold my mind finally start to fall away.

"O-okay man. I don't really get what you mean, but that sounds pretty bad. I, uh… I guess I'll see you around then."

"Oh, do you need to take care of something."

"Yeah", he says and begins to walk away.

As he goes, I feel too empowered to notice something. The look of worry and borderline fear on Klein's face.

I sit relaxed with my back straight and head up to the sky for a few minutes longer before Iota rejoins me.

"Alright, I'm good to go. Let's head out."

"Sounds good", I say, standing up.

"You're looking better already", Iota says, smiling.

We take off down the streets of Urbus, me with newfound confidence. On the way out of town, I no longer feel the pressure of everyone's gazes. Talking with Klein helped me remember the good I've done for people. It helped me push away the blame and guilt that others had put on me. Then I hear a voice in front of me.

"Kirito?", Argo says.

Her face is completely neutral. None of her usual playfulness remains.

"Argo?"

"I couldn't believe what Jackson was saying about you, but now I see you with an orange marker and together with him. What exactly happened in that forest?"

I think about my answer for a moment before replying, "Jackson pushed me past my breaking point and I retaliated. There's only so much blame I can take."

"So, you attacked him?"

 **3 Years: 204 Days: 10 Hours: 1 Minute: 6 Seconds Remaining**

"Yes."

 **3 Years: 204 Days: 10 Hours: 1 Minute: 5 Seconds Remaining**

...

 **3 Years: 204 Days: 10 Hours: 1 Minute: 4 Seconds Remaining**

"How could you?", Argo says in horror.

"Look, I'm not going to sit around and take it while the rest of you use me as a scapegoat."

"Then what, you take it out on other people? They're no more at fault than you!"

"No, but they need to own up to their own shortcomings as well. We were all just as helpless to do anything about Diavel."

Argo stomps her foot exasperatedly and turns to Iota.

"What have you been telling him."

"Hey", I say to Argo. "This conversation is between you and me. Iota has helped me in ways no one else has even tried. All you did is mock me and criticize me. You don't understand me, you don't understand what I've been through."

The look on Argo's face changes in an instant. It's an expression I've never seen on her face. She looks genuinely hurt. She stares me for a moment and then slaps me across the face. When I turn back, I see tears in her eyes.

"You're horrible, you know that? I really tried you know?"

Argo storms away, without another word. I watch her go. Iota looks at me with empathy.

"Look Kirito, I know that must hurt but understand this. In a way, she's just like everyone else. She's just dealing with her own form of helplessness."

"I guess", I reply.

We continue to walk out of town, but as we go, I can't help but think that I've made a horrible mistake.


	5. Chapter 5

**3 Years: 200 Days: 6 Hours: 30 Minute: 57 Seconds Remaining**

The second-floor dungeon takes the form of a series of mine shafts that crisscross in an upwards pattern. The tunnels are stylized with wooden supports and soft torches that illuminate the oranges and reds of the clay. As you ascend you start to encounter ancient artifacts and ruins until you find the boss room which takes the form of partly ruined sandstone coliseum.

At the moment, along with a group of over fifty players, I am approaching the final boss room. Most of them are grouped into a party of eight. I'm in a party of two: Iota and I. Ever since we met, not quite a week ago, we've spent a decent amount of time playing together. He helped me unlock martial arts skill and has been teaching me how to use them. From what he's told me, he actually did a fair bit of martial arts in real life so he has a lot of tips that have helped me take advantage of the system and make the skills more effective. Although the system will carry your movements when you activate a skill it seems that having experience allows you to refine the skill. It's similar to how my real life k3ndo experience helped me understand the sword strikes within the game.

Currently, I'm listening to Iota explain how kicks are used in karate. Although I find it interesting, a decent bit of the information goes over my head, so I let my attention wander a bit. A large percentage of Diavel's old group is in various parties. Although most of the group has split, Jackson and Matrix have remained together and every time I look their way, they shoot me a dirty look. However, I find that I don't really care anymore. He can blame me all he wants but if he's going to mess with the bull, he'll get the horns, as they say.

I also notice a few returning players for the boss raid. Kibaou has formed a new party and Asuna seems to have teamed up with Agil and some of his group. Although Kibaou reacts in the same way that Jackson and Matrix do when I look his way, and often when I don't, Asuna and Agil either haven't noticed me or are ignoring me. Strangely though, despite the fact that I actually liked both of them, I didn't feel any regret about our current relationship. We were not particularly close, to begin with, and if things hadn't gone the way that they did, I doubt I would have met Iota. Even though I've only known him for a little while, he's the closest thing I've had to a friend. Not once since I met him has, he even mentioned my face which still looks gaunt and sickly. I feel like, for the first time, someone truly accepts me.

My thoughts are interrupted as we approach the final boss room. Unlike last time, we did a few reconnaissance missions. A party of especially brave, or perhaps risky, players triggered the boss fight in order to collect information. They mostly kept their distance but they were able to make it back with information that vastly changed our raid plan. During the beta, the second floor introduced the concept of mid-bosses. Essentially, they are just field bosses that must be beaten before you challenge the actual boss. As the floor was meant to introduce players to the concept, both the mid-boss and actual boss were significantly weaker than Illfang. However, that made the second floor the easiest to clear in the beta. The reconnaissance party found that in order to buff the second floor, the final boss in the beta was made into a second mid-boss.

Our plan going into the first boss battle was adjusted to split us up in order to fight two enemies at once, but the basic premise remains the same. During the last fight, I had nearly all the available information on the boss going in. However, I'm in the dark about anything else the reconnaissance party found, mostly because I haven't even seen Argo since I went into town with Iota. I'm sure Argo has been data mining as usual, but since we haven't been keeping in touch, I'm unaware of any changes, outside of the second mid-boss.

"Something on your mind?"

After a moment, I realized that Iota asked the question.

"Oh, I just feel a little underprepared compared to last time. Normally, I would have gotten a detailed description of exactly what happened during the reconnaissance raid", I chuckle a bit, "But since I haven't been talking to Argo I really don't know much."

"Still a bit bitter over the whole Argo thing?"

"A bit I guess."

"Don't be, man. Those kinds of things happen. Sometimes people just need some distance. And even you guys don't reconcile, people drift apart all the time."

"I suppose you're right."

Iota turns and smiles at me.

"If it's any consolation, you'll do just fine in the fight. Even if you're a bit lacking on information, you're a natural at sword skills and your martial skills are improving pretty rapidly."

"Thanks, man."

He turns back to face forward.

"Alright then, let's take this on."

 **3 Years: 181 Days: 3 Hours: 24 Minute: 9 Seconds Remaining**

Two and a half weeks later, I look forward and see Asuna and Agil make the final push against the fourth-floor boss, marking the fourth floor we've cleared. The first floor excluded, our more recent fights haven't had anywhere near as many complications. Which is surprising considering how the more recent fights have been far less coordinated. Personally, I think we spent too much time leveling on the first floor. Most of the monsters on the second floor and up have been pretty easy. Although the boss fights have been difficult, we haven't really come any closer to failing than we did on the first floor.

"That went pretty well", Iota comments to me.

"Yeah, the martial skills worked pretty well in the boss fight."

"For sure."

After a moment of musing, I look down and notice that I've increased to level 18 and that I've leveled up my one-handed sword skill enough to unlock new skills.

"Oh nice, I got some new skills", I comment.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I got one called 'Overhead Strike' and another called 'X-Slash'"

"What's do they do?", Iota asks.

"'Overhead Strike' is just a more powerful vertical. It just puts more force behind the blow but in turn, leaves your body more open to attacks. 'X-Slash' is just two slanted attacks."

"Hmm not bad."

Both Iota and I take a few more minutes organizing our inventories and discussing loot.

"You ready to see the fifth floor?", Iota asks.

"Technically, I already have, but sure."

We climb up the stairs and emerge on the top of a hill leading to the next floor. Surveying the landscape, I see that unlike the fourth floor, which had its entire climate changed, the fifth floor remained faithful to the beta. The floor consists mostly of rolling fields and countryside with occasional farms dotted here and there. The distinguishing feature of the fifth floor is the ancient ruins. The main settlement Karluin is built over the top of a massive section of ruins. It's supposed to be reminiscent of new civilization reusing and reinventing what was there before them. I remember especially liking this floor during the beta.

"So, what can I expect from this floor?", Iota asks.

"Well, most of the dungeons are ruin based. The fifth floor introduces undead enemies, things like skeletons and wraiths. If I remember correctly, it's supposed to be reminiscent of the French countryside and feudal ruins."

"Neat! The campaign continues until the ninth floor, right?"

"Correct."

The campaign Iota is referring to is the "story" of Aincrad. It's divided into sections as you climb the castle, the first of which being the Elven War. This portion of the campaign started back on the third floor. Players can choose one of two sides to aid during the war, namely the dark elves and the forest elves. The idea is that the dark elves revolted against the forest elves in order to gain more representation in the governing body of the elves, the council of elders. Normally the elves are very ethnocentric, but as the campaign progresses both sides will slowly start the accept human assistance.

"Shall we head to the settlement?", Iota asks me.

"Sounds good to me."

The stairs deposited us on the southwestern portion of the floor. To our right are the massive area of ruins that Karluin is based out of. However, the city only takes up a small portion of the ruins closer to the center, so we have a small walk to make before we enter the city. Iota and I take off towards the city.

"You been able to check out the Laketop Fortress quest yet?", Iota asks me.

"No, I've been spending most of my time lately grinding in the Forest of Wavering Mists," I say, "There are a few decent quests in there and the deeper you go the more difficult monsters you'll find."

"You should try it out when you get the chance." Iota responds, "I found a couple of other people to do the quest with me while you were leveling up your sword last Wednesday. They were pretty fun to fight with."

"Oh? Who are they?", I ask him, mildly curious about the kinds of people Iota gets along with. I recently realized I don't know a ton about him, so I've been trying to ask questions that will tell me a bit more.

"Nobody you would know. They seemed like pretty hardcore MMO players. They also seemed to like practical jokes. Said they usually trolled other players in other games."

"Ah, one of those groups", I remark.

Personally, I've never really interacted with those kinds of MMO players. I never really had that much interest in trolling players, but I do understand the appeal. I love a good practical joke as much as the next guy (by which I mean watching others do them on YouTube). However, I get the feeling the practical jokes wouldn't be as nearly appreciated in SAO where that kind of thing could have lasting consequences.

"Yeah, I actually told them I would meet them later tonight for another quest, you wanna tag along?" Iota asks.

"I would, but I'm pretty exhausted. I've been up for almost twenty-four hours now. I'll probably just hang around town and get some rest."

"Sounds like a plan."

Eventually, we enter the town. The buildings of Karluin are made from darkened, weathered stone. Walking along the streets we see multiple construction teams renovating the long-abandoned buildings. Despite that, many of the buildings look empty or have partially caved in. As we get closer to the center, we see many leather and canvas tents being used for a market, which is reasonable considering the lack of buildings to be used as stores. In the town center is a fairly big square which is where most of the inns are located. What was most surprising about the town was the soft snow that was falling, even if it wasn't more than a light dusting on the streets.

"You know, come to think of it, I think it's around New Year's Eve in the real world", Iota remarks as we arrive in the town square.

"I guess you're right", I reply, chuckling. "It is funny though, I didn't even think about it."

"Guess so", Iota replies. "In any case, I've got to take off. I'll open up the teleport gate on my way out."

"Alright, see you later then."

After Iota leaves, I enter one of the inns. I ask the NPC innkeeper for a room and head up to my new base of operation. To start I unequip all of my equipment. Although I don't tend to wear armor, any item you equip has weight and even though I'm using a virtual body, the system sends neural impulses to make me feel sore. Although I want to sleep, I'm currently feeling pretty hungry, another impulse that the NerveGear sends my brain. I once again question how exactly Kayaba was able to implement these features without anyone questioning how viable they would be in an actual video game. I open my inventory to grab some food, only to find that I seem to have eaten all my reserves.

Sluggishly I make my way downstairs. I head out into the town square before quickly entering the building a few doors down, one of the only actual restaurants in Karluin. Its undeveloped nature means that most food is purchased at markets or bought from vendors. I enter the building and am seated at a table along the wall. I only now realize how pathetic I must look, eating alone on New Year's Eve. I lean back in my chair a bit and look over to my right...before suddenly realizing who the party on my right is.

Asuna and Agil both are both seated at the table to my right along with the rest of their current party.

"...then I said to the guy: 'You better pay up'. I drew myself up and pulled back my shoulders. You know, take full advantage of my stature. The guy nearly tore his pants trying to get his wallet out of his pocket", I hear Agil telling his party.

"People never change do they", another player remarks. "You do a lot of trading right; any player ever try to scam you like that?"

"Not in the same way. Since the trade system forces both players to put in their items in order to complete the trade, it's usually not a problem. I do get a lot of hecklers though. Some guy tried to get me to give him an Elven Knight Blade for 5000 col. Unbelievable."

The rest of their party laughs and I see Asuna smile. After a moment she seems to notice me. I must have been staring because she says something.

"Kirito", she acknowledges me coldly.

Agil turns over his shoulder.

"Oh, it's you."

Agil's stature is very imposing but for some reason, the way Asuna carries herself almost seems to exert even more pressure. I feel too tired to really converse with them, but I decided to attempt to make some small talk to lighten the mood.

"Asuna, Agil", I say nodding to each of them respectively. "The raid went pretty well today huh?"

I can tell close to immediately I've said something wrong. Agil tighten his fight and looks away with a grimace on his face. Asuna sigh shortly afterward.

"Color me surprised that you seem to have completely ignored just how badly that raid went."

"What do you mean?", I ask nearly wincing afterward at Agil's reaction.

Asuna remains composed and says, "Five people died in the raid today, more than any other one before. Although it seems you were too preoccupied joking around with Iota to notice anything else."

I had no idea. I've fallen into a habit of ignoring people after boss battles, and the fact that I was able to overlook five deaths in the raid today stings. But I can't just give in to what Asuna is saying either.

"You seem to be pinning the blame directly on Iota and me", I reply.

"I'm surprised you managed to pick up on that considering how much trouble you had recognizing the atmosphere after the battle. Both of you were in a position where you could have saved at least one of those people. But, no, you both were too busy waltzing around and showing off."

"Look, even if I tried to save those players, it may not have changed anything. It's entirely possible I could have caused even more death. You're just blaming me so you don't have to admit that you couldn't anything either."

It looks like what I said struck where I had intended. Asuna slams her fists against the table and stands up.

"That doesn't mean you shouldn't have tried. Those are five people who will never get to see their families again", she yells at me. "Just like Diavel."

"I'm so tired of you all blaming me for Diavel's death", I say raising my voice. "All I had was the knowledge of the advanced skills. That doesn't mean anything. Do you think all those players would have been able to adapt fast enough to counter them? In fact, trying to get them to switch strategies in the middle of a boss fight is likely to get even more of them killed. I didn't kill any of those players, SAO's system did. The system doesn't have feelings, it's designed with the possibility of killing us in mind."

"That doesn't make it right to let them die. Everyone wants to get out of this game. All of our families are on the other side, waiting and hoping for us to come home. You can't be bothered to think about anyone besides yourself."

"NO! It's you who won't think of anyone besides yourself. You treat those players like martyrs because it lets you escape the fact that you lived and they didn't."

I seem to have hit home with that. She looks down and tenses her body. I get up and leave. Even with the entire restaurant staring at me, I stand by what I said. The players of this game need to stop treating those who died like saints just because it's convenient for them.

I leave the restaurant and start heading back to the inn. Even though I'm still hungry I no longer have any interest in eating. As I walk away, I hardly notice the fireworks going off behind me and once again I can't escape the feeling that I've done something horrible.

 **3 Years: 180 Days: 13 Hours: 49 Minute: 59 Seconds Remaining**

The day after my outburst at the restaurant I walk through the streets of Karluin. A short distance away from the center of the city is a massive castle. Although it is abandoned, the castle is in decent repair, especially when compared to the rest of the city. The castle itself serves as a massive dungeon, but my destination today is a little different. Not far from the castle is the entrance to a dungeon known as the catacombs. Although the first floor technically resides within the town limits. The levels below that are all part of a dungeon that houses both strong enemies and high-tier loot. I agreed to meet up with Iota here today but he messaged me saying he would be a bit late and to go ahead and get started.

After a bit more walking, I end up in front of the narrow stone staircase that leads down into the catacombs. The passage is drilled into stone and the walls are slick with moisture. I make my way down the steps carefully because even in SAO you can slip on wet surfaces. I once again curse Kayaba for his attention to detail.

After a few more minutes the passage empties into the slightly taller and wider corridors of the catacombs. Much like those in modern day Europe, the walls of the catacombs are covered in skulls and human bones. As I walk through the maze-like passages, I notice worn inscriptions in a foreign language. It seems to be Latin-based, making it even more difficult for me to decipher what it says.

After studying it a moment longer I continue to walk forward. I don't really remember any of the catacombs from the beta so I begin to map out the corridors. From there it doesn't take long to find another set of steps that leads me down to the next level of the dungeon. Once I've entered the second floor, I start to encounter enemies quickly. At first most of them are just bare skeletons, but as I progress, I begin to encounter more difficult enemies. Skeletons begin to have equipment and armor and occasionally I find a zombie. As I continue to progress through the dungeon my skills as a player a consistently tested, just the way I like it. Most of the loot that can be obtained from the catacombs take the form of relics, items that can be traded in at a collector's shop for money. Occasionally though, players can find well-preserved equipment.

I turn another corner and find a phantom blocking my path. Phantoms are one of the most difficult undead enemies, especially this earlier in the game, mostly because they take reduced damage by comparison. However, smiling a little to myself in the face of the challenge, I run forward and began to take it on. I dodge in and out of the phantom's attacks, landing a hit when I can. Every time the phantom's attacks do connect, the area where it hits becomes cold, yet another one of Kayaba's weirdly specific game mechanics. Noticing that the phantom is close to being finished I activate my new skill "X-Slash", which connects to finish it off.

However, after the challenge the phantom provided, most of the enemies thereafter seem weaker by comparison. Eventually, my pace slows down to a walk and I start to avoid enemies when I can. While I am peeking around a corner to check for enemies, I feel something cold and sharp against my back. I instantly jump forward and spin around...only to find Iota there smiling.

"What was that for?", I all but shout.

"You didn't respond to a single one of my messages. I knew you were just absorbed in fighting as usual, but I thought I'd surprise to get back at you."

I chuckle a little bit and let my nerves calm down, "Alright, alright, I'm sorry."

Turning back to face him I notice something. The marker above Iota's head is back to being orange.

"What happened this time?", I ask.

"Oh, it was really just a practical joke gone too far."

"You didn't get into a fight, did you?"

"Am I really that transparent? Yeah, I saw some guy picking on his weaker party members."

"I know you are trying to do the right thing and don't ever really want to kill anyone but, in this world, you gotta be careful."

"I know, I know. That aside though, you ready for some exploring?"

"Sure."

Although I answer affirmative, for some reason I can't quite feel as excited by the prospect of fighting as I thought I would be. The feeling I get when he mentions continuing, while not foreign to me, is not something I thought I'd feel in SAO. I quickly push away the notion and follow Iota further into the dungeon.


	6. Chapter 6

**? Years: ?+? Days: ? Hours: |\ Minute: /-? Seconds Remaining**

The sand slowly wormed its way between my toes as I sat on the white sand beach. The blue horizon of the ocean stretched out as far as I could see, quite contrary to the skies of Aincrad which open up into an endless sky. While most people love the beach, I couldn't quite bring myself to enjoy it. Instead of getting up and splashing in the water, I sat on the beach slowly becoming more and irritated with the sand that was working its way into every crevice of my body that it could.

A short distance away my m0ther and s1ster were playing in the surf. I watched as they were both knocked over by a rather large wave. In either direction were people of many ethnicities enjoying their time similarly. In fact, it almost seemed like I was the only one on the beach that wasn't having fun.

All I could think about was I'd rather be in bed or playing an online game. The sun's rays seemed to drain my energy rather than replenish it, as it seemed to for so many others. Whatever it was, the beach seemed to make me feel alone and empty despite being surrounded by so many people.

I was on a trip to Hawaii, something that most people would never get to experience, and my par3nts were actually spending time with SuguhA and I. Normally they're never home. My fath3r worked across seas in the US and my m0ther had a full-time job and was almost never home. You would think I would be happy to spend time with my family, but nothing we did made me feel any better. Even on a tropical island, all I wanted was to stay in the hotel. Despite the fact that the trip was supposed to be a time for us to bond, I felt as if we were growing further apart.

 **3 Years: 176 Days: 11 Hours: 24 Minute: 55 Seconds Remaining**

I return from my memories of the past to the town of Rovia, the main settlement on the fourth floor. Between the beta and the official version, the fourth floor got a massive revamp. Originally the landscape was a desert of reddish dirt crisscrossed with massive canyons. The canyons themselves were covered in sand, and because the game forced players to navigate the floor from inside in the canyons it was very difficult to traverse. Despite the fact that the textures for the canyons were well designed, the rest of the floor was pretty boring and mildly infuriating. The new design filled the canyons and valleys with water and changed the red soil to pleasant green fields.

To match the new water-themed floor, the main settlement was also revamped. Most of the buildings in the town are made of white marble and the town was built on a lake, meaning that traversing the city is done by way of a gondola, similar to those in Venice. Currently, I'm here with Iota and one of the people he's been questing with lately, whose name is Xaxa. Although I enjoy the city design enough to come here to relax, we're currently here with a goal in mind.

Recently we heard of about a new, minor campaign quest that wasn't in the beta. The clearers went through the floor very quickly initially and managed to miss the rather important quest. Personally, I remember being a bit disappointed that the gondolas couldn't be taken outside of town. As it turns out that very fact is actually part of the quest. The rumors that I've heard (most of it through eavesdropping), say that you actually get an unregulated gondola as part of the quest along with a shipbuilding permit which is supposed to be used on later floors.

We're currently in a gondola on our way to the starting point for the quest. We paid for a ride from one of the various gondoliers around town. I notice the gondola start to pull off the side.

"Here we are. The residence of Romolo", the Gondola driver states.

Iota, Xaxa and I get off the gondola and onto the small platform that provides access to the door. Iota raps on the door a couple of time before a young man with sandy brown hair answers the door.

"I don't think we've met before", Romolo says. "What business do you have with me?"

"We'd like to build a gondola", Iota replies.

The phrase is the key to activating the quest.

"Why don't you come on in", Romolo says.

The NPC proceeds to explain how the Water Carrier's Guild monopolized shipbuilding and is forbidding people from taking their gondolas out of town.

Romolo finishes his explanation with, "I could probably make you a gondola if you collected the materials for me. The Water Carrier's Guild doesn't have jurisdiction over independent shipwrights but I can't leave the town to restock materials and they can undercut my prices by a significant margin. If you're okay with that I can build you a gondola."

A prompt pops up in front of Iota, our party leader, asking if we want to accept the quest. Iota answers affirmatively.

"Great then I'll need you to collect these materials."

Each of us is sent a quest prompt displaying the materials we will need. We begin to look over it.

"Wow, this might take a while. We'll have to kill a fair number of bears to get all this", I say.

"It'd be nice if we had a few more people to make farming enemies more efficient", Iota replies.

"It also might be better to farm Magnatheriums instead; that will get us a higher quality version of all these ingredients", I respond.

"If we wait until tomorrow, I could probably get some of my other friends to help us out", Xaxa supplies.

"That would be nice. At the very least we could get the lumber today", Iota suggests.

At this moment we hear another knock on the door. Romolo goes to answer it and lets another party of players in. The second I see their faces I curse my own terrible luck. It's Jackson and Matrix's party and they look none too happy to see us.

"What are you doing here", Jackson snarls at me.

"Uh, activating this quest, what else."

"Don't get smart with me."

For the most part, I don't really care what Jackson thinks about me, but he's the only who I felt still had something on me. Even so, I'm a bit annoyed with the fact that he talks to me like a disobedient child. Despite what I've told him in the past, Jackson still always acts like he has the moral high ground. In all honesty, I'm getting a bit fed up with him. Then, I have an idea. A way to kill two birds with one stone.

"Jackson, don't you think it's time to bury this hatchet. We're both decent players and discord in the front line is only going to hurt our chances of beating the game. As a token of good faith, how about we help each other with this quest? We could get higher quality materials easier, it would be mutually beneficial."

"As if we'd ever work with you", Matrix snorts.

"Look. I'm not saying we need to be friends. Jackson, I know you probably hate me for what I did to you on floor 2, and for that I'm sorry."

Jackson looks taken aback for a moment.

"However, I won't let you blame me for Diavel. I realize that you don't see it this way, but there really wasn't anything I could do about him, not without risking even more lives. Even if we don't agree, let's try to understand each other's opinions so that we can work together. We're in a bad enough situation as it is, let's not make it worse."

The entire room is shocked. Personally, I am as well. Jackson looks at me with a flat look. After a moment he replies.

"Alright, fine. We'll work together. This doesn't mean I forgive you, but you have a valid point. At the very least, I'll try to trust that you're working for the good of the players. We'll meet you outside the south entrance of the town after we're done."

Jackson then turns away and begin to interact with the Romolo as if to end the conversation and we leave the house.

While we're on the ferry Xaxa says to me, "Not bad. I wouldn't have apologized for hurting him, but you handled that well. We should go questing together more often."

Xaxa smiles at me.

"Sure", I reply, feeling strangely satisfied with myself.

Iota is oddly silent.

 **3 Years: 176 Days: 7 Hours: 31 Minute: 1 Second Remaining**

Unleashing a final 'Overhead Strike', the Magnatherium shatters into polygons. For the past four hours, we've been grinding away at the massive bears. We have to get enough animal fat for the boat as well as claws and teeth to fashion nails.

"Alright, we're getting pretty close", Jackson says. "Let's move on."

Over the course of our hunting trip Jackson hasn't talked to me much aside from anything specifically pertaining to the quest, but to honest, that's okay with me. Matrix, on the other hand, seems to trust me even less. While Jackson seems to be concerned with the welfare of the players above all else, Matrix seems to have a personal grudge against me. Even so, besides the dirty looks Matrix keeps shooting at me, the hunting has been going well. The weather setting on this floor is decent. Why then am I enjoying this less and less? I usually love this sort of thing, grinding away at monsters and using the skill set I've spent so long refining. Instead, the artificial sun seems to fill my actions with lethargy.

"Everything okay?"

I turn to my side to see Iota.

"You're looking a pretty down", he says.

"I'm fine", I say. "Probably just a bit tired."

That was a lie and I know it. I actually got more sleep than I ever do last night, but I'm desperate for something to explain the feeling.

"Are you sure-"

Iota is cut off by the sound of Jackson's voice.

"There's another one up ahead. Get into formation."

Out of the corner of my eye, I think I see a look of annoyance on Iota's face, but it's gone in an instant as he gets into position. The ten of us surround the creature and take turns attacking and parrying the Magnatherium's attacks. One of the beast's claws come crashing towards me and I use an X-slash. The first strike to first alter its course and the second to damage its arm. At the same time, the rest of our group dashes forward to release a sword skill. The bear whirls and attempts to lunge at Matrix, but he jumps forwards and blocks the attack. Slowly we fall into the routine of attacking and defending, and a feeling of monotony returns to me. Every attack feels dull and I slow down to the point that one of the Magnatherium's attacks grazes my arm. That manages to spur me into action just enough for a final push. After the beast falls we check over our resources.

"That just about wraps things up. We need to cut down a couple more trees and then we'll have enough for both of us to finish the quest."

We spend the next fifteen minutes chopping down trees and trading materials so both parties have everything that we need. After we finish, our two groups separate and head back to town. Iota comes back up to me.

"So, what's up? You normally don't mess up that much while you're fighting."

"Oh, it's nothing really. Probably just tired."

He looks at me questioningly for a minute and then shrugs.

"Suit yourself then."

I know he's right. There's definitely something wrong; I just don't want to admit it. This kind of thing happened to me a lot in real life. All of a sudden, I would get really lethargic and I couldn't motivate myself to do anything. Video games were always my way to escape that feeling though. I guess now that I'm living my life as a part of one it's just not as exciting.

Slowly I look around at my surrounds. It's not perfect sure, but the assets for SAO are incredible. Then I get a little spark of inspiration. With such a vast world around me, there has to be enjoyment I can found somewhere.

"Hey, Iota?", I ask.

"Yeah?"

"I just had an idea. I want to explore every inch of Aincrad. I want to understand Kayaba and why he put so much detail into this game. I want to discover everything Aincrad has to offer."

Iota puts a satisfied smile onto his face.

"That sounds like a great idea. Mind if I help you?"

"Not at all."

It was at this point that my emotional breakthrough was interrupted. As the city was coming back into sight our party of three was surrounded by a group of elves. However, they looked far different from normal elves. Their skin was pale to the point of being sickly and their clothes were tattered and torn. Most unnerving of all was that their eyes were either red or pitch black.

"Foolish humans", one of them snarls, "trespassing on the territory of the fallen elves."

"Part of the elven campaign?", Xaxa whispers.

His question is answered moments later when another says, "Wait, these look like the humans that partnered with the dark elves."

"Then they are twice as foolish for meddling in the affairs of elves", the previous elf, who appears to be some sort of leader, replies. "Even so, that just makes this many times more interesting."

We all draw our swords. We're outnumbered close to three to one, but that doesn't stop us from fighting. After my earlier declaration, I feel rejuvenated. I dodge several blades, thrust forward at on one of the elves, and then drop down to sweep the feet out from underneath another, replicating the move Iota showed me the night we met.

"Nice!", he calls out.

Jumping back up, I use an X-Slash to cut across the chest of one of the elves. I feel myself get nicked by one of the other swords and use a roundhouse kick to send to elf sprawling. Noticing that Xaxa is in a bit of a bind, I execute my newest and possibly favorite skill in the game: "Vorpal Str1ke". Lunging forward I turn myself into a torpedo and rocket forward with a massive jump. I hit one of the elves in the chest and it shatters into polygons.

"Thanks!", Xaxa yells.

After a few more strikes the leader of the elves calls out.

"R-retreat!"

The remaining four elves dash away.

"Whew, you two are amazing", Xaxa sighs. "I barely did anything. You should teach me some of those martial skills sometime."

"Sure thing", I reply.

Iota looks out towards the retreating elves.

"What do you say we follow them? Who knows what we'll find?"

Smiling I reply, "Time to take things seriously, eh?"

Grinning like maniacs we sprint off to follow them.

 **3 Years: 163 Days: 6 Hours: 26 Minute: 36 Seconds Remaining**

That was two weeks ago. Currently, I'm standing in a war conference that serves as a cutscene in the Elven War campaign. Ever since the New Year, we've been maintaining a floor clearing rate of about one per week. In fact, we just cleared floor 6 about three days ago.

Floor seven is composed of mountainous terrain. The southern and northern ends are both at the base of a mountain range that divides the floor. To get from the main village to the dungeon, players must cross the mountains. Although the distance between floors limits the height of the peaks, they still pose a significant challenge to climb. They also happen to be one of the big barriers impeding the elven war.

As the story goes, the dark elves are fighting for more representation in the elven system of governing, the council of elders. Although each side has a royal family, most decisions are made by the council. At the start of the war, seating on the councils was delegated based on population size. The dark elves, who were in the minority, always had lower representation under that system, and since decisions were made based on a vote, the forest elves could easily outvote the dark elves. Essentially, the argument boils down to sticking to tradition versus reforming the system to be fairer to the minority. Either way, I chose the dark elves because I personally prefer the loot on this side. If you were to ask me about the political debate though, I personally don't think there really is a right answer, at least not on one of the extremes. You can't have something without giving something up. Giving power to one side means taking it away from the other, concentrating power in the minority can be just as bad as concentrating it in the majority. What a system like this needs, are measures in place that prevent one side from taking advantage of the other.

Regardless, my thoughts currently reside elsewhere. To be more specific, with the fallen elves we fought on floor 4. After giving chase to the party of fallen elves we ended up in a sort of camp of theirs. Clearing the camp itself wasn't an issue, but I don't remember fallen elves anywhere in the elven campaign during the beta. They seem to have been given a deliberate role in the storyline, which means I can probably expect them to reappear.

After a moment of contemplation, I begin paying attention to the elven commander who is going on about how the mountains are causing a stalemate in the war. Since large forces can't go through a teleport gate at once, most of the battles have been fought in smaller skirmishes. The dark elven castle is on the third floor while the forest elves have their castle, along with the council of elders, on the ninth. The seventh-floor mountain range creates a natural barrier that makes it difficult to transport troops and materials without a teleport crystal. Therefore, our objective on this floor is to explore the different passes and tunnels to find one suitable to move larger amounts of resources.

Currently, I'm partied with Iota, Xaxa, and two more of his friends; Johnny Black and PoH. I did one other mission with the whole group a few days ago and I thought that Johnny and PoH were pretty cool, if a little bit unfocused and rowdy. Iota wasn't kidding about these guys loving practical jokes. They sprung a trap on an unexpecting weaker player, and even though they didn't really do any harm the guy, they looked pretty rattled. Even so, they're all talented players and this quest should be fun with a bit of extra help.

"Our first objective will be to explore Bronx Pass. It's closer to the edge of the floor so it's not very heavily used. It's still decently sized, so if we can secure the pass it should serve our purposes well. Now then, let us be off."

The elf, Kizmel, finishes her speech and we all get ready to go. She serves as a quest companion on floor three, and depending on how you play, she'll either get killed or will get promoted to a higher command with your help. It's a pretty interesting concept in a game and I'll begrudgingly admit that Kayaba programmed excellent AIs for his NPCs, which makes these campaign parts of the game even better.

We all step out of a wooden cabin on the edge of the main settlement, which is made primarily out of wooden cabins and gives the overall impression of a homely kind of town. To our south is the impressively rendered mountain range. Currently, it's about three and the snow that covers the mountains glows in the sun's light. From here, I can just barely make out Bronx pass. Technically our goal is the small town of Bronx that exists not far below the pass. Kizmel begins leads the way across a trail that's almost completely covered in snow. Traversing the seventh floor requires players to buy or complete a quest for snow boots or snowshoes (I chose to get boots because they augment my kick strength). With the time we have left, we should be able to get to the town by sunset as we can travel mostly in a straight line. We quickly fall into step behind Kizmel and our small little journey begins.

"Anything important you remember from the beta?", Iota asks me.

"If I remember correctly, this pass ends up being blocked by an avalanche. Eventually, we end up battling a small encampment of forest elves on another pass to secure passage."

"Hmm, the campaign has deviated enough from what you say about the beta that it's probably safe to check regardless", Xaxa comments.

Besides the gondola quest, I've done two other quests with Xaxa, one with just him and Iota, and one with everyone, so it's safe to say that I know a little better than the others. He's a little quieter by comparison to Johnny and PoH, but he's probably the most skilled. PoH is a natural talker. He carries himself with more confidence than even Iota could muster, much less myself. Hopefully, I'll pick up some tricks from him. Even if I've gotten to the point where I can speak up for myself, it's still pretty easy to get bogged down by the rest of the players' complaints against me.

Suddenly we hear some rustling and I catch a snow hare dash away out of the corner of my eye. I turn back to see that most of my party have their weapons drawn.

"Relax. Just a nonthreatening animal."

"Oh", PoH says, sheathing his long daggers. "I don't really ever see passive mobs."

"Yeah, you usually have to raise your detection skill a fair bit to detect them", I reply. "I guess the idea is that in the wild, animals are usually quite afraid of humans. I have a theory that Kayaba focused more heavily on making SAO truer to real life than an actual MMO."

"Hmm, that would actually explain a lot of nonsense this game puts us through", Johnny comments while chuckling.

Kizmel seems to have been listening "I don't know what you mean when you talk about this Kayaba, but let's keep moving."

As we begin to move again, I take note of the confused smile that she had on her face. As well made as the AIs in the game are, they're not perfect. From the interviews I've read on Kayaba, he used the top-down approach to build AIs. Essentially what this means is starting with the big picture and slowly breaking that down in its components. Conversely, there's the b00tem-up approach, which involves starting with basic components and adding to them. In Kayaba's case, he started with the main goal of interacting with players and gave his computers a function known as machine learning in order to allow them to find ways to perform their task better. According to his interviews, this was one of the big focuses of the beta test. Removing the AIs from an isolated state in order to help them replicate human speech and interactions. It seems it worked pretty well because the AIs work even better now than they did in the beta. Even so, there's this pretty common look they have to put on their face that represents confusion. It's a good reminder that however perfect this world seems, there are always flaws. My musings about Kayaba's world continue to carry me to the small town of Bronx and the rest of the night passes uneventfully.

 **3 Years: 162 Days: 16 Hours: 48 Minute: 57 Seconds Remaining**

"Man, this is pretty unexpected. I thought you'd already be halfway across the floor by now. Glad to see you're running a bit behind your usual breakneck pace."

"Klein?", I asked, looking at him and his grinning group of wannabe samurais.

"Yeah, we wanted to meet up with you and do another quest. We haven't really played together since the first floor. Besides, we could all use a few pointers from someone who actually knows what he's doing."

I was told afterward that the look of surprise on my face was a sight to behold. Not because I was particularly surprised about the chance encounter, but rather because the person in question had specifically tracked me down. Something just seemed a bit off about the whole thing.

"Okay", I replied, hesitantly. "What did you have in mind?"

I had actually just woken up not even an hour ago. It was still a couple of hours before sunrise, because I had told my party that if we made it to the pass before daybreak, the sunrise was incredible. I still wasn't sure if the avalanche that had been there in the beta would block our view, but I figured that it was worth a shot. Besides, none of my party really had anything against being up this early.

"Well, it looks like your about to go on a quest right now. Mind if we tag along."

Looking at Klein's party, they looked underleveled. Their stats would be just fine around early floor 6, but I wasn't sure about a mid-floor 7 quest. Their level wasn't the only thing I was concerned about though.

"Well, it's a campaign quest so unless you already accepted it and you guys chose the dark elves side, it wouldn't work. Besides are you sure you guys are prepared for something like this?"

"Well, we chose the dark elves", the one named Dynam replies. "And we're pretty well equipped."

"We haven't accepted any quest, though", the one name Issin follows up.

"But that wouldn't stop up from tagging along, right?", Klein interjects.

I turn back to the rest of my party.

"You guys okay with this?"

"Go ahead", Iota says, apparently amused by my reaction to the situation.

Xaxa, Johnny and PoH also seem to enjoy my reaction and they all give varying degrees of consent. PoH doesn't seem to be thrilled by it, but not particularly against it either.

"Alright, you guys can tag along", I say, smiling.

"Nice!", Klein says.

All of sudden a notification pops up in front of Klein's screen.

"Wow, it's giving us the option to accept the quest as well."

"Really? I've never seen that before."

"Probably because you rarely play with anyone else besides Iota", Klein comments, getting a laugh out of everyone.

"Yeah, yeah", I say. "I guess increased player freedom means the system has to be more adaptable."

PoH then decides that it's his turn, "I take it you're just going to keep acting like an awkward cross between a walking encyclopedia and a pretentious philosopher?"

This garners an even bigger laugh. Dale comes up to me and puts his hand on my shoulder.

"Look man", he says in that one, completely overused hippie voice that everyone has grown immensely tired of by now, "You gotta just relax and take life how it comes."

At this point, everyone loses it and starts laughing uncontrollably.

"I get it, I guess it's just rag on Kirito day", I say, laughing a bit myself. "We should get going if we want a shot at seeing the sunrise though."

"Fine, fine", Klein said, "But now that we've officially declared this rag on Kirito day you better be prepared."

So we take off, all the way the rest of them having multiple laughs at my expense. Regardless I feel like I'm enjoying myself, not fighting or playing a game just for the sake of it. Along the way we have to fight a couple of wolf-themed mobs and a mountain lion, but nothing we couldn't handle. Eventually, we make it to the top of the pass. Examining it I can see the avalanche that I remember from the beta has blocked off the pass. However, the snow does look climbable. Overall, not an option for the dark elves, but we can still get a decent view.

"I must admit", Klein begins, "the sunset and rises are spectacularly rendered in SAO."

"Now don't you go start sounding like Kirito", Dynam mocks.

We all make our way towards the barrier ready to climb.

 **3 Years: 162 Days: 13 Hours: 57 Minute: 12 Seconds Remaining**

I look up to see two large boulders of snow fall from above with no warning. I freeze and my brain speeds up by about a thousand times. One ball will hit Xaxa directly while the other is heading for Dale and Dynam. I want to yell but I can't make my voice work. It's exactly like Diavel. Everything in me locks and…

 **3 Years: 162 Days: 13 Hours: 57 Minute: 9 Seconds Remaining**

The snowballs hit almost exactly where I thought they would. Dynam and Dale are lucky and the ball misses them by inches. They still get blasted back and take massive amounts of damage. Xaxa isn't so lucky, the snowball hits him directly and crushes his avatar. From behind various rocks and chunks of fallen snow, a large force of fallen elves streams towards us.

 **3 Years: 162 Days: 13 Hours: 57 Minute: 7 Seconds Remaining**

[Player d9ad0257-99f9-4499-aeb6-f6331aa25a74 has died.]

Shattered polygons explode from under the massive chunk of snow. I suddenly remember why giving compliments to Kayaba's game just seems instinctively wrong.


	7. Chapter 7

**3 Years: 162 Days: 13 Hours: 57 Minute: 9 Seconds Remaining**

The boulders land and I'm somehow able to move again. In a swift motion, I unsheathe my sword and dash forward. It's the rest of my party's turn to be surprised now. Dynam and Dale have lost over half of their health which makes them a liability if we want the rest of us to get out alive. Johnny and PoH are looking at the shattered polygons that were once their friend with a dumbfounded look. I bring my sword down using a "Slant" skill. The fallen elf meets my strike with a standard curved sword block, but my superior strength stat overpowers him with a resounded clang and my sword cuts into the vital point on the side of his neck. The sound stirs the rest of my party back to life. Klein and Issin form a protective barrier around their fallen comrades while they get up and try to heal. Meanwhile, Iota, Johnny, and PoH rush up to help me.

With two elves streaking towards me I release a "Vorpal Strike". I shoot forward, precision directing my sword directly into the unguarded stomach of one elf. Attempting a rather risky skill chain I immediately adjust for a "Horizontal", simultaneously pulling my sword closer to my body and spinning 270 degrees. Although the chain itself works, my strike isn't perfect and it misses the soft spot on the neck and instead knocks the helmet off of my opponent. Realizing this, I attempt the much easier chain into a backward dodge. Glancing back, I notice another elf closing in from my back right. In the air, I twist my body in order to face the elf. Just in time, I manage to raise my sword to block. Then an arrow hits my shoulder. A feeling of numbness floods my arm in place of pain and I nearly drop my guard. Dodging to the side I disengage our swords and activate a horizontal skill, neatly slicing into the weak spot at the neck. Looking up with a quick glance, I see a row of archers standing on top of the pile of snow that blocks the pass. I took only a split second to wonder why there were bows in Sword Art Online.

"We need to take care of the archers!", I yell while thrusting my sword into another fallen elf's stomach. As I use every tool at my disposal to not only fight the massive number of oncoming elves but also dodge arrows, I glance around towards the rest of my party. All of them seem to be caught very off balance by the whole ordeal. Some of them seem very rattled; Klein and the rest of his recovering party can barely seem to hold their guard. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Johnny and PoH seem so enraged that they're leaving themselves with lots of exploitable openings. Even Iota seems to be upset, although not to the extent of the others. That means that at the moment I'm the only one fighting at full capacity. My emotions seem to be completely numb at the moment, which is allowing me to analyze the situation calmly, but once the adrenaline wears off, I doubt that will be the case. Currently, Johnny and PoH are about to be surrounded, so with a couple "Vorpal Strikes" targeted at other elves I manage to get myself over to them.

Fortunately, the elves agro is directed towards PoH and Johnny so a set of chained "Horizontal" skills allows me to take out a couple before their agro gets redirected. A couple of the elves turn to fight me and I bait them back with a small backward dodge. I attempt my "Vorpal Strike", spin and "Horizontal" combo again but the second skill doesn't catch and I feel myself lock up in movement lock. My opponent takes her opportunity to strike towards me, grazing me across the chest. When I unfreeze, I immediately drop down and sweep her legs out from under her. With a quick stab to the vital point, I once again turn to the rest of the field. A quick glance tells me that my darting around generally allowed me to escape agro. The elves seem to have been thinned out enough to try to deal with the archers. As I dash towards the pile of fallen snow, I remember that SAO has a climbing skill. Like most people, I've never even touched it, which makes me worried about my chances of getting up. However, the arrows are doing too much damage to be ignored. Using a "Vorpal Strike", I manage to reach the snow. Uses a combination of desperate scrambling and stabbing with my sword I manage to make it to the top, taking two arrows in the process.

A quick glance reveals that my HP gauge is hovering just above thirty percent remaining. The elves now all have their arrows aimed at me and in a split-second decision I execute a low "Vorpal Strike", sending my sword into the archer's stomach, and carrying me far enough forward for two arrows to whiz right over the top of my head. Rolling forward I use a skill activated punch to send the next elf crashing into the one behind him, knocking both of them off the snow mound. However, in the short delay after my punch, an arrow hits my shoulder. I feel my grip on my sword loosening but I still manage to activate a "Vorpal Strike" that kills the next elf. Looking forward at the final archer I see him release an arrow, not at me but rather down below. Before I can do anything, it hits Dale in his lightly armored chest.

 **3 Years: 162 Days: 13 Hours: 51 Minute: 10 Seconds Remaining**

[Player 7a2daab4-6105-4c3b-915d-5d940b9874e5 has died.]

Dale has a look of determination on his face right up until he shatters into polygons. Releasing the last bit of my energy I'm able to kill the final archer. I finally collapse under the weight of it all. Looking down the rest of my party finishes off the rest of the elves along with the fallen archers. It doesn't take long for everything to dissolve even further though.

PoH storms up to Klein's party, "This is all your fault! You four were all too under leveled and we had to focus on protecting you all instead of saving ourselves."

Iota quickly comes up, "Calm down PoH. You're just trying to blame them. That was a surprise attack, there's nothing we could have done about Xaxa. I know it hurts, but you can't be consumed by rage."

"To hell with that", PoH says, and he swings his sword down towards Klein's undefended back.

Johnny and Iota grab onto PoH to restrain his uncontrolled flailing.

"Stop it", I say, sounding just as defeated as I feel. "I saw the boulders coming, but...I couldn't do anything. I wanted to help, but..."

I trail off, feeling empty.

"You can't just keep blaming yourself Kirito", Iota says, levelly.

"In that case, this all the more your fault then!", PoH yells, not at me, but at Klein with renewed strength. "If Kirito didn't have to worry about saving your sorry asses, he could have helped Xaxa!" he continues.

"PoH, stop!", Johnny yells.

Then Klein turns around and looks up. I'll never forget his expression. The wannabe samurai's face had completely broken. Gone was the grinning, determined face I remembered. What replaced it was one of utter despair. His face was contorted in grief and tears ran down his face.

"Look, man", Klein says, trying to put on a brave face. "I know how it feels. You want to blame anyone but yourself and circumstance. But, you gotta understand, I lost a friend today too."

I suddenly remember Klein telling me how his party had all been close college friends. Klein lowers his head.

"I think I finally understand what you meant back on floor 2, Kirito."

PoH face trembles a little before he shouts, "I don't care! Just get away from me!"

The remainder of Klein's party didn't need to be told twice. They trudged away through the snow. As they left, the sunrise peaked its way over the top of the of the snow that had hidden the fallen elves' ambush. The wounds I thought I had closed feel raw once again. Diavel's death. And now Xaxa and Dale. I wallow in my own powerlessness and the tears start to stream down my face. I once again marvel at Kayaba's foresight. I guess only he knew that tears would be a necessary feature of Sword Art Online.

 **3 Years: 150 Days: 9 Hours: 39 Minute: 56 Seconds Remaining**

Forcing down my emotions had become a regular habit of mine now. Iota's commented on it several times, but I think he understands that I'm not just going to get over this overnight as I did with Diavel's death. At least he's been trying to support me as well as he can. Even so, I can only ever really express myself when I'm alone. I feel like I did before the launch of SAO. Trapped in the darkness of my room. Unable to get off my bed. I wanted to believe that leaving the real world would change all that, but no matter what, the air of melancholy seems to follow me around. Today marks the day of the eight-floor boss raid. Almost everyone else is preparing, but I can't even bring myself to do that.

The eighth floor consists of a forest of massive trees, far bigger than any of the previous floors. The trunks are all at least as wide as I am tall and the canopy brushes up against the bottom of the ninth floor. The surface of the floor is covered almost completely by water and to traverse it, you have to use man-made suspension bridges or climb across branches. Naturally, that makes falling into the water below fairly common. There are ladders positioned on various trees so usually after a quick swim you can be on your way again. However, on my way to the boss raid today one of the planks fell out from underneath me and I fell into the water. I swam to the partially submerged base of one of the trees and I've been sitting there for a while now.

Through the dense canopy, shafts of light illuminate the trunks of the massive trees, as well as the ever-present layer of moisture in the air. The visual engine of Sword Art Online only shows a player's full detail if they look directly at something to reduce the strain on the server, but if you look at one of the shafts of light you can see the mist swirling. Well, I guess all I'm doing at the moment is complimenting Kayaba, but it's still astounding.

I'm jolted from my musing by a large splash. The funny thing is that because of that splash I could tell that the water wasn't rendered all that perfectly. Everything looked too uniform and perfect to truly be a liquid. I started chuckling at the imperfection I just found. Thinking back, I remember the water on the fourth floor being similar. In other words, just too perfect.

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up wise guy, you obviously fell down here too."

Looking up I see a figure I recognize swimming towards me.

"Asuna?"

"Yeah", she replies, making it to the tree base where I'm sitting. "What, do you make a habit of sitting down here so you laugh at people when they fall down?"

"Not even close", I say, flatly. "I actually just realized that the SAO engine has problems rendering water."

"Is that really worth laughing about? You're even more boring than I thought."

"Hey..."

"Oh please, you're always shouting off pretentious things about blame, and the only thing I've ever seen you do is fight virtual monsters and sit alone in a restaurant."

"In my defense, I'm only really responding to everyone hating me."

"Sure. But my point is that you're all trying to assign too much meaning to this game. It's nothing more than a death trap made to turn us on each other."

"Really, I do seem to remember you yelling at me for not doing anything about Diavel or the players who died on floor four."

"H-hey I was just in shock. And besides I wasn't really blaming you, I just wanted you to take clearing the game more seriously, and then you had to go and yell at me."

This goes on for a bit, while Asuna gets more and more flustered.

"I guess we're really all the same."

"Excuse me", Asuna say, looking offended.

"We're all just a bunch of pretenders. I played this game because I wanted to escape. You try to act superior but really you can get just as addled when someone calls you out. People refuse to accept their own weaknesses."

Asuna has a deadpan expression on her face.

"Okay Socrates,", she said snorting.

"Really, that's your response?"

"You're just trying to assign meaning to this death trap because that makes you feel better."

"Oh, we're playing that game, are we. Then you're just arguing with me because you can't accept the fact that you're wrong."

"Why you little-"

"Not that I want to interrupt...whatever is happening down there", a deep voice booms out prompting up both to look up to the top of the rope ladder we were supposed to be climbing up, "But we have a boss fight we really have to get to."

I recognize the face of Agil looking down at us. Asuna seemingly gets more flustered.

"Well anyway, you need to stop making such a big deal out of things", she says before promptly beginning to climb the rope ladder.

"Yeah, just as soon as I stop getting held responsible for people dying."

"What was that?!"

"Nothing, just keep climbing!", I yell, grabbing onto the rope ladder.

When we get to the top, I see the rest of Asuna's party snickering at her.

"Shutty!", she yells at them.

I chuckle a bit to myself and start climbing my way to a sturdier branch on the other side of the tree.

"Hey, where are you going", Agil calls out to me. "The path to the dungeon is this way. You've never missed a raid before, aren't you coming?"

"Shortcut", I yell back, precariously walking across a branch.

"Now you're just showing off", Asuna yells. "You falling is a perfect example of why I yelled at you after the fourth-floor raid."

"Oh really", I say turning around and smirking while walking backward, "I do recall you falling as well, on far less difficult terrain!"

"Oh, you're on", she says clambering up branches.

It's funny actually, once you know who a person really is, they're fairly predictable.

"Wait, Asuna, I put all my stats into a strength build", Agil shouts. "I don't know if the branches are going to support my weight."

I laugh to myself as Asuna, Agil and the rest of their party clambers after me. I feel glad that the air of melancholy has been lifted off of me. Nimbly, I climb across the branch and I remember why I like VRMMOs in the first place. Maybe it is a method to escape, but really, what's so wr0ng with thAt.

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 2 Hours: 31 Minute: 31 Seconds Remaining**

With the Elven War nearing its end I was wondering how Kayaba would handle what he built up to be a massive battle. Especially since it didn't make sense for all of the game's players to be there at once. If the game had been released to the public, I would have expected the whole war to be a series of instanced event that way any and all players could play through the campaign. However, SAO is rather unique by comparison to normal MMOs. The campaign seems to evolve over time, not unlike a single player RPG. However, considering SAO's MMO nature, these two elements don't really work together. The way I saw it, the game was leading up to a climactic one-time event, which would suck for the players who weren't of a high enough level to participate yet, but would make sense considering how the game was designed to work as close to real life as possible. Kayaba ended up going in a slightly different direction with the end of the elven war and instead set it up more like a limited time event. As soon as the clearing group reached the ninth floor the war kicked into full gear. Battles were set up as instanced events that players could take on as quests based on their player levels. As long as the player was strong enough to complete the quest that starts the campaign back on floor 3, they were able to participate. Additionally, there were certain criteria that had to be met in order for the battle to be considered a win for either side, like getting the other side to retreat or completing an objective. The event ends once one side gets over one hundred wins and at least twenty-five more wins than the other. Just the other day the dark elves side cleared those criteria. We currently have 142 wins compared to the forest elves' 113. What this means is that we'll be able to initiate the final fight in the war. Overall it just gives us more options in how we attack.

Currently, we're in the middle of a planning cut scene. Our plan is to attack after dark using a massive force tonight. Over the past two days, the dark elves have been mobilizing our forces and moving them toward floor nine. Everything will be in position for tonight's attack. While the elves will be doing the majority of the fighting, player parties can sign up for roles in the upcoming battle. This ranges from fighting in the central battle to forces aiming to distract by starting fights on other floor and an advance force who will avoid the main battle in favor of trying to sneak their way into the forest elves' castle. My party falls into the latter group.

"So, we're going to head to the eastern side and uses ladders to scale the wall and gain access to the castle. We're then to kill as many of the remaining able-bodied fighters as we can from within the walls", Iota says.

Kayaba sure went the lengths to make this final battle interesting and complicated. The variety of roles and options for attack are astounding. Anything from siege warfare to ditching the battle and operating a stealth mission instead was an option. Hell, there was even an option to lure the other side's leaders into a trap under the pretense of a diplomatic solution and then kill or take said leaders hostage.

"We've been grinding up our speed and stealth in preparation", PoH says, referring to himself and Johnny. We haven't really discussed what happened on the seventh floor and I'm happy keeping it like that. My talk with Asuna was surprisingly pleasant and uplifting and ever since I've been able to push down the complicated mess that was the fallen elves' ambush.

"So have we", I reply.

"We should be ready, then", Iota says.

We proceed to exit the dark elves' castle which served as the location of the final war meeting. The third floor is somewhat segmented by large raised rocky ridges and the castle is built right up against one of them. Much like the eighth and ninth floor, the third floor's general theme is a forest. A good portion of all three floors are covered in woods, but in contrast to the massive, spaced out trees on the eighth floor, the third and ninth have much more reasonably sized forests. From there, the major difference between the two is that the third use a coniferous forest while the ninth uses a deciduous. Additionally, in place of the ridges and rocky outcroppings of the third floor the ninth has a multitude of lake lakes, which feed waterfalls that fill the floor below with water. Making our way to the central courtyard of the castle, our group teleports to the main settlement on the ninth floor.

"This is it", Johnny says, "Been looking forward to this for a while."

"Yeah, I've been interested in seeing how Kayaba wraps up the story."

"Geez, Kirito", PoH says, "I was kidding at first, but now I actually think you're some sort of Kayaba scholar."

"Sorry, I was a fan of his work before we got caught up in this mess, so I like to try and figure out what he was thinking while making this game."

"Whatever floats your boat, I guess", Johnny remarks. "I'm more excited about this massive battle though. You don't see large-scale MMO battles like this very often."

"Definitely", Iota replies.

Currently, we're following a small river by moonlight that brings us pretty close to the castle. We stashed our ladders further away in hopes that they wouldn't be discovered. In another frustrating Kayaba design choice, player's inventories have a size and weight restriction, meaning that we can't store ladders in them like some games allow.

"There they are", Iota says, pointing to our hidden means of climbing.

After a few more paces we reach the ladders.

"Alright, the main force should be engaging soon. We should wait for maybe fifteen minutes after that to give the castle some time to clear out", Iota states.

"Agreed", PoH replies.

It seems that Iota and PoH became the dominant decision-making body for our party. Whenever something comes up Johnny's usually happy to go along with everyone and I'm probably too busy contemplating things like why Kayaba choose to include a specific species of butterfly into SAO or something equally ridiculous. I guess that means I don't weigh into most of the decisions we make. I smile and chastise myself for a moment.

"All right, just got a message that the main force has engaged."

Hopefully, the parties that are attacking forest elf forces on other floors diverted a fair number of players and elven NPCs. In that case, they would have to send out more of their available forces, leaving the castle mostly unguarded.

After waiting for a while, we pick up our ladders and head towards the castle walls. Choosing a more shadowed portion of the structure, we begin to prop up or ladders and climb up the outer wall. The pathway on top is lit by evenly spaced torches. Looking back and forth none of us see any guards. After descending into the main grounds from one of the guard towers, we slink across a courtyard and into the main structure of the wall. We encounter our first elves in the form of a group of elves who are running out to begin fighting. We manage to surprise them by hiding in the more shadowed portions of the castle. We kill all of them with a little bit of effort and proceed to climb our way further into the castle. Eventually, we come across a room that been filled with wounded soldiers who are being tended to by some elves who appear to be nurses. The entire room lets out a gasp when we enter.

"P-please don't kill us mercenaries", the nurses beg us.

We examine the room for a moment before speaking.

"We should kill them", PoH says, "Who knows when they'll be able to reenter the fight."

He's right, technically these NPCs could be healed by way of potion and return to the battlefield. However, while logical, PoH's statement just seems doesn't right.

"But, they're defenseless", I reply, "We should just leave them. Besides our mission is pretty time sensitive."

"True, but on the other hand, these people are witnesses that could expose us", Iota says.

"It just doesn't feel right", I say.

"Since when have you had problems killing elves", Johnny counters.

I stay silent for a moment before Iota replies.

"Well, I guess you're right about the time constraint. Let's just get a move on."

I'm glad Iota was able to read how uncomfortable I was.

"Fine, I guess", PoH replies.

We run out of the room and start moving towards the top of one of the castle's inner wall. I can't help thinking about the room of elves. Why would Kayaba have even included it into the game? The potions could just as easily be used on the battlefield itself. There are some more serious injuries in SAO like amputations that need more time to heal, and while some of the elves definitely seemed to have sustained those types of wounds, many of other's injuries were relatively minor.

After a second, I realize that I was unconsciously treating the NPCs like humans, and to a degree, so were the rest of my party. They were assuming that the elves would take the most logical approach as humans without even considering whether they were programmed to do that or not. Deep down I have yet another feeling that Kayaba is trying to tell us something.

We reach the top of the second major wall of the castle. This one does seem to be guarded, but not very well, and we managed to dispatch the elves with relative ease. Even so, somehow it just feels a little off now. I take a brief moment to look out over the battlefield. The plan for the main force was to head directly for the front gate. The being that, the area in front of the front gate is relatively open compared to the gnarled forests that surround it on the other sides, leaving more room to fight. Something seems wrong though. The entire battlefield is a mess. After a bit of closer inspection, I can tell why.

"Fallen elves", I say, clenching my fists.

My entire party whips around and looks over the battlefield. Both fallen elves and forest elves alike are being massacred the fallen elves. Although their force in comparatively smaller, they're having no problem dispatching of their opponents. Looking out over the battlefield, I see elf after elf shattering into polygons. It's not just the elves either. I see players shattering as well.

"We have to go help them", I say.

Everyone in my party nods and we quickly retrace our steps with reckless abandon. The most skilled players were sent to infiltrate the castle, meaning that our most talented players are not part of the main battle. Whether a small group of four players will be able to make much of a difference, I don't know. But maybe the real reason we ran out to the battlefield was due to an unspoken agreement that we an ax to grind with the fallen elves. Even if the fallen elves weren't our true enemies, they represented the system and person who was. Either way, hopefully, other groups will follow our lead.

Suddenly, we notice another group of people. Jackson and Matrix's party. Jackson looks mildly surprised to see us. If I remember correctly, he chose to side with the forest elves. After a moment, he speaks.

"Look, whatever qualms we have we need to put them aside for now. There are people out there dying. Will, you help us?", Jackson asks.

"Of course", I say.

It's amazing how quickly the conversation was over. It occurs to me that just like I had told Asuna, maybe we weren't all that different. We both had our weaknesses, and we both cared about the people who were close to us, and we both knew when we had to act. Maybe we were unsure sometimes, but all of us had the power to alter the course of the battle. Especially together. We may never get along, but in the end, that was okay.

Together our two parties charged into the massive battle. It quickly became clear why the fallen elves were winning. Their weapons and armor were more advanced than anything the players or elves had access to. They also seemed to be heavily enhanced. Normally, I could use my superior strength to overpower the elves, making killing them easier. But now I had to rely completely on skill. I took every chance to chain skills together. Martial to a sword and back again. Not only did I have to save myself, but I also had to stop the people around me for dying. Even if there was nothing, I could do about Diavel or Xaxa or Dale, I could act now to save more people. As I dodged in and out, precision aiming every attack and movement, I finally understood what Asuna meant. Even if you couldn't save everyone, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. I thrust my sword into the neck of one elf and I twisted to hit another with a "Horizontal" skill. I used the double strikes of "X-Slash" to stun my opponents. I dropped down to knock elves feet out from under them. Right in the middle of fighting, I noticed a certain purple haired dark elf. Kizmel. A moment later she noticed me.

"Kirito!", she said. "I thought you were on an advance team."

"I was", I replied, "But we noticed the mess that was going on down here", I duck under a sword, "and decided to lend a hand."

Kizmel smiled, "I can't thank you enough for all the help you've given us with the fallen elves. Let's fight on!"

I continue to dodge in and out of my opponents, happy that my skills were finally being used for something. Maybe it was a game, but when it came down to it, I was still saving lives. I thought back to our beginnings with the dark elves. Even though I know that Kizmel and the rest are just NPCs, they all act so much like people that it's hard to treat them as anything else. As this massive quest went on, I slowly began to realize that even though I had only chosen to side with the dark elves because I liked the loot better, now I truly wanted to save them.

After a moment, I ended up fighting back to back with Jackson. I twisted my sword to deliver a "Slant" skill to keep a fallen elf off of Jackson's back.

"Nice hit!", he shouted.

For a while, we ended up fighting with each other. We save a group from a particularly strong fallen elf and then brought down a few more. The tide begins to turn as more of the parties that were still in the castle slowly began to return to the battle. Even some of the elves who were in the infirmary.

"You know", Jackson said between breaths, "Maybe my initial opinion of you wasn't wrong at all. Maybe you're alright after all."

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: 9 Minute: 18 Seconds Remaining**

He didn't notice the blade coming straight for him. It pierced his back with a sound of finality. The back I was supposed to be covering. A quick glance at his health bar told me all I needed to know.

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: 9 Minute: 17 Seconds Remaining**

I quickly dispatched of the elf.

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: 9 Minute: 16 Seconds Remaining**

Jackson watched his health bar deplete.

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: 9 Minute: 15 Seconds Remaining**

"Maybe you were right. You shouldn't be blamed for something you don't have any control over."

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: 9 Minute: 14 Seconds Remaining**

[Player 364097b2-596f-4165-862d-5d419f6bd992 has died.]

Everything around me seemed to change. Maybe we were winning, but it was never without a cost. Forest elves shatter a few feet to my left. A dark elf shattered a few feet to my right. A fallen elf shattered a few feet behind me. And a player, no a person, shattered right in front of me.

I had no choice but to keep fighting. The adrenaline that had kept me alive earlier was gone. The same adrenaline that had kept me alive while fighting Illfang. The same adrenaline that fueled my vengeance when I couldn't save Xaxa, or Dale. It was all gone now. Nothing but the feelings I had tried for so long to push down remained.

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: 6 Minute: 31 Seconds Remaining**

I kept fighting to distract myself. Anything to keep what I kept bottled up inside from spilling out.

 **3 Years: 136 Days: 0 Hours: /? Minute: ?- Seconds Remaining**

Every time I cut down an opponent it stung. A much bigger and intimidating fallen elf appeared. Must be some sort of boss. The rest of us rushed forward.

 **3 Years: -/- Days: - Hours: ?/ Minute: ?+ Seconds Remaining**

A strike against him.

 **{} Years: +/- Days: ?_+ Hours: ? Minute: +? Seconds Remaining**

A strike against me.

 **/ Years: +/\ Days: / Hours: \/ Minute: ? Seconds Remaining**

Please stop.

 **/ Y3ars: +/\ dAys: / H0urs: \/ M!nute: ? S3conds R3main1ng**

Why do you do this to me.

 **/ Y3Ars: +/\ dAys: / H0Urs: \/ M!nUt3: ? S3conds R3mA1n1ng**

Kayaba.

 **0 Years: 0 Days: 0 Hours: 0 Minute: 0 Seconds Remaining**

Kanamoto Atsushi.

 **0 Years: 0 Days: 0 Hours: 0 Minute: 0 Seconds Remaining**

I guess my story was never meant to be happy. It was never meant to end properly. Even if I picked myself up again. It will always lead back to this.

 **/ Y3Ars: +/\ dAys: / H0Urs: \/ M!nUt3: ? S3conds R3mA1n1ng**

AaAaaaAaaAh, WHY?!

 **/ Y3rs: +/\ dAs: / H0Us: \/ !nUt: ? S3c0ds RmA1n1n**

 **/ 3rs: +/\ ds: / H0s: \/ !nUt: ? S3c0ds RA1n1n**

 **0 Years: 0 Days: 0 Hours: 0 Minute: 0 Seconds Remaining**

I'm sorry. Let's try this again. I suppose this story isn't quite over yet.

 **3 Years: 135 Days: 23 Hours: 22 Minute: 9 Seconds Remaining**

"You can't blame yourself, Kirito."

"It's not your fault."

"You did everything you could."

Iota was there. So were Johnny and PoH. Asuna and Agil were too. Even Matrix was trying to help me. But I couldn't take it. It was my fault. I couldn't do anything. I was nothing more than a piece of shit. I couldn't even do what my parents tried to do. I mean my real parents. And they died trying. Why is it that when I'm surrounded by people, I feel the most alone?


	8. Chapter 8

**/ Y3Ars: +/\ dAys: / H0Urs: \/ M!nUt3: ? S3conds R3mA1n1ng**

AaAaaaAaaAh, WHY?!

 **/ Y3rs: +/\ dAs: / H0Us: \/ !nUt: ? S3c0ds RmA1n1n**

 **/ 3rs: +/\ ds: / H0s: \/ !nUt: ? S3c0ds RA1n1n**

[Rath/System/LCC/LC1000: Critical Failure]

[Rath/System/LCC/LC1000: Initiating Emergency Shutdown Protocol]

 **0 Years: 5 Days: 11 Hours: 35 Minute: 6 Seconds**

"Well, that could have gone better."

"At the very least we're getting closer to the problem."

"How did you know him again?"

"We met right after the SAO incident. He was friends with my younger brother in-game."

"Oh, sorry...it's really too bad what happened to him. Are you going to the funeral?"

"There's nothing we can really do about it now. Besides, even if I only met the boy at first for official reasons, we were pretty good friends. It's up to us to fix what Kayaba destroyed."

"Should we bring them in?"

"I hate having so many possible security breaches, but this is of the utmost importance. I'll make the arrangements later today."

…

"I'm sorry Kazuto. I should have taken this more seriously. Now you're...you're..."

"If you're not comfortable continuing we can postpone this."

…

"No, we have to keep going. I need to take responsibility for my own negligence. We can fix him. Boot it back up."

[Rath/System/LCC/LC1000: Critical Memory Errors Discovered]

[Rath/System/LCC/LC1000: Beginning Stabilization]

[Rath/System/LCC/LC1000: ...]

[Rath/System/LCC/LC1000: Stabilization Complete]

 **0 Years: 0 Days: 0 Hours: 0 Minute: 0 Seconds Remaining**

I'm sorry. Let's try this again. I suppose this story isn't quite over yet.

 **0 Years: 0 Days: 0 Hours: 24 Minute: 17 Seconds Remaining**

I'm running as fast as my legs can carry me. I'm barely in control. I can feel the anxiety rising up in me. I'm not exactly a stranger to panic attacks, but this one feels like it's going to be particularly bad. No one listened to me. They all told me I was being paranoid. But no one knows the ghosts of my past like I do. I've been running from them long enough to know that they would catch up eventually.

I can only barely register my surroundings. I'm still in Tokyo, but it's a less urban area. It also appears to be a richer neighborhood. The houses here are far bigger compared to the ones in my neighborhood.

The contents of my stomach feel like they're rising up. I'm not exactly in shape, but regardless I start to hyperventilate. I can feel my brain slowly collapsing into hysteria. I stop being able to hold a coherent train of thought. The still park the moonless sky they're coming a tree the streets are silent. Every muscle in my body threatens to collapse. I want so much to collapse. A light goes out in a house this place seems vaguely familiar a single streetlight a chestnut-haired girl.

"What are you doing here."

I shouldn't stop. But my mind has had enough.

"I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again."

I fall to my knees. The girl's eyes flicker for a moment as she notices my condition.

"Huh? What's going on?"

I notice that something has been clenched in my hand this whole time. An umbrella. Oh right, it was raining earlier. Just like my tears. Wait, I'm crying? Tears of hysteria, but tears nonetheless.

"What-what the hell is going on?"

My brain comes back into just enough focus to recognize the person in front of me. Then:

"There you are...Kirito."

He found me. Just like I knew he would. Why does he insist on calling me Kirito? It's just Kazuto. Kirito has been gone for a long time. I wipe the tears away from my face. I might as well look my best for our final confrontation. Or at least, as well as I can. I turn around to face him. My eyes immediately track to the syringe. I try to meet his gaze.

"Atsushi."

The girl behind me does a double take. "You mean he's..."

"You recognize this don't you", Atsushi states.

Suxamethonium.

"You don't have a sword to protect you anymore, Kirito", he continues, laughing maniacally.

He's right. In the end, though, that sword was just a way to hide. Kirito is nothing more than a facade. I'm not a hero. Just a kid who's had everything taken away from him. I could never stand up to all the people who tried to put me down. I could never rise up to the expectations of my friends. And yet, everyone insists on calling me Kirito.

"Let's put an end to this", Atsushi declares.

Atsushi rushes towards me. This is it. In a last-ditch effort, I drop down. I don't have anywhere near enough leg strength to kick his leg out from under him. That used to be so easy. Instead, I throw my umbrella out in front of me. Our blows land at almost the same time. I hit him in the stomach with the sharp point on the end of my umbrella. He hits me in the stomach with the syringe.

It takes a moment for the spell to be broken. Then Atsushi pulls back screaming. He drops to his knees, bunching up his shirt to try and staunch the bleeding. I let all of the muscles in my body relax. That final attack was all the great Kirito could muster. I guess it's my turn to die now.

 **3 Years: 93 Days: 4 Hours: 32 Minute: 6 Seconds Remaining**

Floor fifteen is themed after a subarctic forest. Most of the trees are birch and seem to have permanently lost their leaves. Even so, the floor is a sight to behold. Snow and icicles have crystallized onto the trees forming complex frozen structures. Several frozen rivers run through the floor. The water seems to have been frozen instantly preserving the complex flow mid-action.

Currently, though, I'm sitting in one of the floors dungeons. Almost all of the dungeons on this floor are caves made of ice. Most of the caves are completely covered in ice, and icicles drip down from the rockier portions. They exist only slightly below the ground to allow light to filter and refract through the ice, illuminating the caves with a soft glow. I'm in one of the deepest safe rooms in the cave system, resting a bit for the moment.

Things have been going pretty well lately. Floors are being clear at a rate of once every week to two weeks. Even though that's good progress, unless we speed things up it might be another two to three years before we escape Sword Art Online. Hopefully, the clearing group will be able to pick up the pace.

"I swear to god, Kirito. I only ever find you when you're moping."

I do a double take.

"Argo?"

She's still wearing her signature brown cloak and a few strands of her golden-brown hair peeked out from behind her hood. She still has her signature whiskers on her face. It occurs to me that I haven't even seen her since the second floor. I'm also in a particularly difficult region of the floor. I'm pretty sure Argo puts most of her effort into leveling stealth and observational skills.

"Yeah."

"I'm not moping."

"Yeah, I'd be more inclined to believe that if you hadn't vanished off the face of the earth for the last month and a half."

"You noticed?"

"Everyone noticed! Seriously even Matrix was a bit concerned."

"Since when do you know Matrix?"

"It's good to diversify your informants."

She pauses.

"Look I know you haven't participated in a single boss fight since floor 8."

"Well, good for you."

"Are you really just going to give me the cold shoulder."

"If you're really so observant, you probably should have noticed that I'm not really in the most sociable mood."

I turn away and look up at the ceiling above. Focusing in, I can see little bubbles of air frozen into the ice. I'm starting to get really tired of Kayaba's attention to detail. The only thing I have on his system is its over perfect simulation of water. Then, all of a sudden, I feel a pair of arms around my chest. I look down.

"Argo?"

She pulls back and sits down next to me. I notice that her hood has been pulled back. I almost never see her without it on. She has a sort of wavy hair that's been cut back into a bob.

"Look I'm not all that great at this whole consoling thing, but I'm sorry."

"What for?", I say.

"Okay don't even pretend this isn't about Jackson and the elven war."

"It's about a lot of things, Argo. Not just that."

"Well, at least you're being honest with me."

Argo pauses for a moment.

"Also, I'm sorry about what happened on floor 2. I wanted to help you back then, but I didn't know how."

"What are you referring to?"

"Really? You were off hiding somewhere, _not_ unlike now. I dropped by and tried to raise your spirits."

"Yeah, I'm not that dense. I just don't particularly remember that conversation being all that comforting."

"Yeah, that's what I'm apologizing for asshole."

"Oh, sorry."

"Anyway, I'm sorry I got mad when I saw you with Iota. He didn't exactly have the best reputation. But I was really upset that he was to able to help you, while I wasn't."

"Oh..."

"After that, even though I wanted to apologize, I decided to be stubborn and wait for you to try and get in touch with me. Real mature, I know."

"Well, I guess that makes two of us."

We both laugh for the first time in a while.

Argo continues, "For a while, I watched you and Iota and those other guys you started hanging out with. Johnny, PoH, and Xaxa, right? You seemed to actually enjoy being around them and it started to get harder and harder to try and talk to you again."

"To be honest, they've helped me out a lot."

Argo has a bit of dejected look on her face.

"That doesn't mean I wouldn't have enjoyed talking with you though", I reassure her.

Her face brightens up a little.

"Well I feel pretty stupid now", she replies chuckling.

"Me too...wait, hold on, did you say you were watching us?"

Argo turns away and averts her eyes, looking very suspicious all of a sudden.

"Argo?"

"I-I'm sorry if you want any more information you have to pay."

"Argo, I swear to god!"

"Fine, I tailed you guys sometimes. I just wanted to check on you, I swear."

"Geez, I guess that's just the way you are."

"Hey, what do you mean by that?"

"Exactly what I said. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with that though."

"Oh...well thanks then."

Argo pauses again.

"So, partners?"

She says holding her hand out.

"Partners", I reply, shaking her hand. "Shall we engage in our customary exchange of information."

"Oh my god, I forgot you talked like that."

I raise an eyebrow.

"Right, right. I'm not implying that there's anything wrong with that. Anyway, what do you got for me?", she replies.

I have to think about that for a moment.

"Shit! I guess I have just been moping for the last month."

Argo starts to laugh hysterically.

"Wait, wait, I just remembered. I can basically give you the map data for any obscure dungeon that's completely isolated from memory. I mean, I spent so much time hiding from people I've bound to have discovered some random part of the map you haven't seen yet!"

Argo starts to laugh even harder. After a minute she calms down.

"To be completely honest", Argo replies, "being an information broker is a lot different now. We're all in unfamiliar territory now. Also, I'm pretty curious as to how you managed to avoid us for so long. Iota, Klein and I were actively looking for you, and although Asuna refuses to admit it, I think she was keeping an eye out for you as well."

"I'm not really sure how. The last few months have been a blur. I did figure out pretty quickly that you can hide your location from friends if you want to. Oh, wait a minute, I just remembered. I, may or may not, have found out how to get teleport crystals."

Argo looks at me incredulously for a moment.

"Why didn't you lead with that!"

 **3 Years: 91 Days: 8 Hours: 40 Minute: 51 Seconds Remaining**

So, as it turns out. Isolating yourself from society for a month and a half leaves you pretty far behind. Apparently, guilds are a big thing now. In my mind, guilds are just glorified, permanent parties with meager benefits, but nevertheless a lot of players like them. Guilds have existed since floor three, but most of them were just small groups of friends. However, from what I've heard, two guilds have risen to dominance lately. The Aincrad Liberation Front, or ALF for short, and the Divine Dragon Alliance, DDA for short. I don't really know anyone in the Divine Dragon Alliance, but the ALF was founded by Kibaou and a player I haven't heard of named Thinker.

Although I'm not particularly interested in joining a guild, I happened to pass by the headquarters for the DDA. As a guild, you can declare an area as a safe location for a base. As far as I know, you can either claim a base within a safe area or participate in a quest to clear out mob spawns from an area you want to claim. The Divine Dragon Alliance set up their guild headquarters in an existing safe area on floor 13.

Floor thirteen is dominated mostly by a massive city. From what I can tell, it's almost as big as the Town of Beginnings. The city exists surrounding a massive castle with buildings and shops spiraling down from the main structure. Generally speaking, elevation corresponds to social class and the various NPC shops and Inns get nicer and more expensive as you go up. There are a lot of guild halls available in the city and coupled with the variety of item and services, it's quickly become a sort of hub within the game.

The Holy Dragon Alliance headquarters exists in one of the upper rings of the city. As such the material and general furnishings of the place are pretty high quality. The building itself is made out of marble and the flags that advertise the guild's flag are dyed with rich colors. Typically, I stay in less expensive inns and taverns, that is, when I'm not sleeping in dungeons. Most of the time I don't see a particular need to indulge in myself here in SAO. That being said, I will spend a bit more money on food than most. Much like the other senses, the NerveGear simulates taste as well. Call it my one guilty pleasure, but I got sick of eating hard, dry bread all the time just because it was cheap a long time ago.

Deciding it's about lunchtime, I leave for an area of the city with more options. I get to a square of sorts and enter something like a deli. Technically speaking, restaurants originated in Paris during the mid-eighteenth century, meaning that Kayaba look some liberties when it came to time periods, but tavern food would probably get boring after a while, so I don't have any complaints. From what Argo has told me, a lot of people have tried to use the cooking skill. However, it's supposed to be pretty difficult to level up and the food usually tastes pretty bland. No one has succeeded in recreating more complex flavors yet.

Leaving pseudo-restaurant with my sandwiches, I decide to sit down on a park bench in the square. The city is sprinkled with areas like these and they even have grass sometimes. The city even has built-in aqueducts. Currently, the most surprising thing about the square is the number of people that are gathered. Scanning for a moment I quickly find the reason. Someone seems to be performing in the middle of the square. They appear to be singing and using what I believe is a lute as accompaniment. Looking closer at the performing, I identify it as a girl who appears to be a year or two older than I am. Her hair is soft brown and is cut just above her shoulders. Surprisingly enough, she has pretty high tier equipment. She wears a white dress with blue trim that I don't really recognize but judging by the quality it probably cost a decent bit. From what I can hear she's got a decent voice and she seems to be playing the lute skillfully. I laugh to myself a bit. Every day I learn something new about SAO. Then I notice some red hair peeking out amongst the crowd. Walking up, I tap the red-haired, bandana-wearing samurai on the shoulder. He turns around to face me and his expression goes from a goofy grin to a look of shock, and back to a goofy grin again.

"Kirito?!"

"Hey, Klein."

"Geez, man. Maybe a little more warning next time. I haven't seen you in what, two months."

"Yeah, not since...well you know? Also, I've been meaning to ask you how you're holding up without Dale. Sorry to be so blunt about it."

"It's no trouble, probably best to talk things like this out anyway. We've been holding up pretty well. We found a nice place to make a grave for him."

"You made a grave?"

"Yeah, I guess we just wanted a better way to remember him, you know. A way for him to leave a mark on Aincrad."

"Hmm, that actually sounds pretty nice."

"Yeah, it really helped. Dale was always just a nice, goofy guy."

"You're all pretty goofy", I reply, chuckling.

"Yeah, I guess we are", Klein says. "It won't get us anywhere dwelling too much on the past though. We've got to move on and beat the game for him!"

Klein pumps his fist into the air for a moment and looks back at me.

"Also, before I forget, where the ever-loving potato sandwich were you? I heard you were missing in action from Argo and I've been trying to help her find you."

"I was in a lot of places, most of which were nowhere near people."

"Well, you would have dropped by towns sometimes, right?"

"Not as many times as you might guess. Also helps that I had teleport crystals, as long as I'd been to a place before I could teleport back."

"Wait this game has teleport crystals?!"

"Yeah, don't tell Argo I told you. She probably would have you made you pay out of the nose for just that much."

"I swear, she'd sell a person's darkest secrets if she could turn it into a profit."

We both chuckle at that one.

"Uh, excuse me", I hear another voice say.

Klein and I turn and see the girl who was performing earlier. The crowd seems to have cleared out, meaning she probably finished her performance.

"Wait, you're the girl who was singing earlier! Thanks for the performance, you're a great singer!", Klein exclaims.

"Glad you liked it. Also, I couldn't help but overhear you two talking about teleport crystals."

"And just like that everyone knows", I mumble to myself. "Argo's gonna kill me."

"What was that?", she asks.

"Oh, nothing. Yeah, I did mention teleport crystals. They're hard to get this early on, but it's still possible."

Klein responds this time, "Well, spill it, Kirito. You haven't even told me yet."

Both Klein and the girl look pretty eager to learn.

"Alright, alright. You can either get it as a rare item drop from a few mobs that spawn from floor eleven onward, or you can craft them, kinda like a potion. The ingredients list includes some pretty rare items though."

I proceed to list them off while Klein and the girl make a list using their menu.

"Thanks, a lot", the girl says. "By the way, my name's Yuna. Feel free to drop by anytime you see me performing. I like to think that my music helps cheer people up."

"Sure cheered me up", Klein replies. "I'll be sure to keep an eye out for you."

"Thanks, I'll be going then!"

She waves and runs off.

"She was pretty nice. Pretty good looking too."

"Really, Klein? Are you really going to hit on girls over video games?", I deadpan.

"Hey, come on. A guy's got to dream, am I right?"

"I mean if all you want is an Xbox relationship then go ahead. I mean I guess college students who spend all of their spare time playing MMOs can't afford to be choosy."

"I'll have you know that I don't just play MMOs."

"Then pray tell, what else do you do?"

Klein seems to be about to saying something and then freezes.

"Uh, I also...play RPG games."

We both chuckle at Klein failed defense of his lifestyle. Then again, I guess I'm really no different.

"Exactly", I reply, with a mock condescending tone. "Besides, you're probably quite a bit older than her."

"Hey, I'm only twenty. You just want her for yourself."

"Yeah, no."

After a moment we both bust out laughing. I guess it was kinda strange that we were having such a normal conversation in Sword Art Online. It sounded like something that friends in real life would talk about. Both of us were trapped in a death game, and I still had plenty of time to poke fun at Klein's life choices.

 **3 Years: 90 Days: 10 Hours: 5 Minute: 32 Seconds Remaining**

Floor fourteen has a sort of magical feel to it. The floor has an interesting mix of terrain, there's a good chunk of forests along with a sort of terraced, rocky outcropping in the western portion of the floor that collects in large pools of water from a natural spring at the top of the rock formation. The water flows into waterfalls and tumbles further down the rock formation into rivers that run across the floor, through the forests and various other terrains. Like the fifteenth floor, there's a pretty extensive cave system. However, this one goes much deeper and is decorated with clear, crystal formations that seem to emit their own light.

Right now, I'm collecting some map data on the caves for Argo. I camped out in the deeper portions of these caves for a decent chunk of time during my "lost month and a half". Most of the mobs in the cave are wraiths and other undead creature along with bats and golems, essentially just monsters made of rock. Most of the bats are harmless, but occasionally you'll find swarms of them, which can cause problems if you're not in a group. I've learned to just avoid them. It was on this floor that I initially discovered the teleport crystals as a drop item of some golems. So, my sub-objective here is to try and farm for some.

Noticing, a smaller, and likely lower leveled golem, I pull out my Anneal Blade and engage it in combat. Its attacks are mostly wide sweeping swings with its arms, but some of the higher leveled ones can shoot crystals as a projectile. I use a combination of low dodges and skill augmented jumps to avoid the attacks. I attack using mostly "Vorpal Strike", which has quickly become my favorite skill. Before long the golem shatters. Unfortunately, there's it doesn't drop the crystal so I decide to move on.

It's kind of amazing to think that I've been using my Anneal Blade since floor one. I've already enhanced it the maximum amount of times and sword is definitely starting to show its age. I have a backup sword that I got from the Elven War campaign called the Queen's Knightblade, but I'm still a little reluctant to switch over.

My reminiscing is suddenly interrupted by the distant sounds of combat and a scream. I take off running hoping that no one is in danger. I emerge into a large cavern and see a party of people locked in combat. My brain goes into overdrive and I start to analyze the scene in front of me. A small party of five is struggling to hold their own against a high-level golem. It might even be a field boss. The party is clearly underleveled and underprepared. Their gear is adequate for floor twelve at best. Most of them seem to be below fifty percent health. Cursing my newfound sympathy for people who are acting rashly and are in over their heads, I jump in to help. Dodging a volley of crystal shards, I activate an "X-Slash".

"I need you to back me up", I call back to the nearly defeated group. "I'll do what I can to keep it occupied. You guys take the flanks."

I pour all of my effort into diverting the golem's agro. I use a similar strategy to the one I used for smaller golems, except I force myself to be more aggressive. I attack the golem more often, and even though I take more damage, keeping its attention off of the wounded players is my priority at the moment. A flaw quickly becomes apparent in my plan. My sword doesn't have enough weight to properly defend against the heftier attacks of the higher-leveled golem. I keep trying to stun the monster, but even with the two strikes "X-Slash" gives me, it's not enough. I quickly realize what I'll have to do. I have to switch to Queen's Knightblade. Even in this situation I still feel reluctant. For the most part, it's the only thing I have left from the beta days. Maybe it's the nostalgia, or maybe it's the sense of seniority my beta tester status gave me. I grit my teeth and make my resolution. The beta test is behind us. Were in unfamiliar territory now and I can't keep clinging to the past.

"I need someone to switch in for me!", I yell.

"Uh, on it", a sandy-haired player responds, taking my place. Navigating my inventory using mental commands I switch my Anneal Blade out for the Queen's Knightblade and jump in to rejoin the fray.

Although not being quite used to the sensation of the new sword puts me at a disadvantage, I'm able to make it up with the extra weight from the sword. I'm not fighting quite as accurately as before but when my hits land, they deal more damage and I finally stun the golem a few times. Noticing that the golem is about to fall, I decide to show off just a little. I activate a brand-new skill, "Horizontal Square". The four-hit combo is a success and in a final burst of light, the golem vanishes. Looking down at my loot, I notice that I received two teleport crystals. Silver lining, I guess. The group of five runs up to me.

"Thanks!", one of them says. "You really saved our skin."

"No problem, but you seriously should be sticking to lower level floors. You're not at a high enough level to be fighting up here yet."

"Yeah, that's on me", the sandy-haired player says. "I wanted to try and get some extra experience, so I dragged my guild up here. I was hoping that tackling a more advanced area would make us stronger. I guess I rushed things a little. I'm still getting used to this whole leading thing."

"You don't say", I say, mildly sarcastically, before smiling. "Well, all's well that ends well, as they say. Just be more careful next time. I take it you're the guild leader?"

"Yeah, my name's Kieta by the way. What's yours?"

"Kirito."

"Nice! Hey guys, why don't you introduce yourselves."

"I'm Ducker", a blond-haired player says. He's a bit shorter and looks a bit younger than the rest.

"Tetsuo", a taller brown-haired player says. "Nice to meet you."

"Sasamaru here", a player with curly brown hair says, emphatically.

In contrast to the first four, the fifth member of the guild seems much timider. She has straight black hair that falls just past her shoulders and she doesn't seem to have anywhere near as much energy as the rest of the group. In fact, she looks rightfully scared.

"Uh, nice to meet you mister Kirito", she says. "I'm Sach1"


	9. Chapter 9

**3 Years: 90 Days: 1 Hours: 22 Minute: 49 Seconds Remaining**

Tonight has been an awkward affair, to say the least. After saving the lives of this hyperactive guild, who call themselves the Moonlit Black Cats, they invited me to dinner at their base (read inn on the eleventh floor). To be honest I'm not entirely sure how to react to them. I guess you could say that I've been set back a few steps in terms of interacting with people after disappearing for a month and a half. I mean it's not like I really knew much to begin with. I bluffed my way into becoming friends with Klein and his friends under the notion that all had to do is act superior. In fact, that's how I've been approaching a lot of interactions. To be honest though, I can't really do that anymore though.

"I must say Kirito, you were incredible fighting the golem. You must be pretty high leveled, right?"

The one named Kieta says this to me. He's the leader of this nearly doomed enterprise.

"I'm level forty if you must know." I reply.

"Wow, you're nearly twice our level."

I nearly spit out my food, which frankly, is the only reason I've actually stuck around for so long.

"You were trying to take on floor fourteen at level twenty?"

"Yeah, I wanted to try and push us to get better."

"Yeah, well, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing."

Everyone looks at me a little funny for a second.

"What do you mean by that", the one named ducker says.

I groan internally.

"Sorry, that made a lot more sense in my head. What I mean is that pushing yourself to do better is all well and good, but you can get yourselves in over your head if you're not careful."

"Yeah, I think our fight with the golem made that pretty obvious", the one named Tetsuo remarks and the group shares a little chuckle.

"So, given your high level, I'm guessing you're a clearer, right?", the one named Sasamaru asks.

"Sort of", I reply, not exactly wanting to let on how little I've actually been doing to help the clearers.

"Incredible, I didn't think a solo player could hold their own on the front lines", Ducker replies.

Well, normally you can't. Solo players can't usually keep up to players in guilds when it comes to level and equipment. Having multiple players makes it easier to get experience and to take on harder challenges. Nevertheless, don't underestimate my strategy of doing nothing but grinding for a month and a half in order to distract yourself from the maelstrom of your own thoughts. That's a bit of an exaggeration, but still.

"So, Kirito. It's been a long-standing goal of mine for our guild to rise up the ranks and starting helping on the front lines. Do you have any tips for us?"

"You're still going on about that Keita?", Sasamura chastises him. "We're barely able to hold our down here. The front lines are just a pipe dream."

While Keita's guildmates are taking the realistic approach, their guild certainly needs the help, otherwise, they're going to get themselves killed trying to fight more difficult monsters than they have the capabilities to.

"Well, to start you're going to do some serious leveling. I believe that level 20 is the bare minimum for exploring on floor 11. Most of the frontliners are beyond level 30. I'm a bit excessive in that respect, but I do a stupidly ridiculous amount of grinding. That said, there are several people on the front lines who are even higher leveled than I am."

I start looking through their basic character profiles for a second. The numbers aren't good. The highest leveled player seems to be Tetsuo at level 22. The others aren't far behind, with the notable exception of Sachi who is just barely level 19. Thinking back, I'm not sure Sachi has said a word this entire time. At the moment she's just staring off into space and lightly moving her food around with her fork. She looks really uncomfortable. I hope that's not my fault.

"Beyond that, I don't know much about guilds as a whole, but since you're small scale, all you're really going to be doing is forming a single party. Tell what you've got as far as party layout."

Keita answer, "Well out biggest problem is that we put most our skill points into tank builds. Our only real DPS player is Tetsuo. I've been trying to get Sachi to switch to a DPS build though. Right, Sachi."

Sachi looks up momentarily at the sound of her name.

"Oh... right."

Keita's feeble attempt to bring Sachi into the conversation seems to backfire and he turns back to me.

"So, what do you think?"

In SAO, there are generally two strategies for tank players. First, is to use a one-handed sword and a shield, or to just use a sword. As a tank, your goal is to occupy an enemy's agro and to take most of the damage. Most of the time you put player stat points into constitution and strength. As a shield user, you generally use your shield to block an attack. Without a shield, you usually attempt to deflect attacks. To former requires more constitution while the latter requires more strength. From the looks of it though, none of their party uses shields. More skilled players can make that work, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they just put points wherever they wanted and are playing however they want. Interestingly enough, Tetsuo is using a spear, which is difficult to pull off offensively. If he was a player in a top level guild, I'd probably be impressed, but as it stands, it only serves as evidence for my theory that they aren't very well prepared.

I decided to do what I can to advise them and say, "Well, it looks like with the exception of Tetsuo, you're all using a sword defensively. If that's the case, I'd advise putting as many points into strength as possible, as well as several sprinkled into constitution. Additionally, as you mentioned earlier, your party is pretty imbalanced. If you really want to get to the front lines, one of you needs to switch to DPS. Tetsuo, a word of advice, you're also going to want to put a lot of points into strength, but also into speed. That's what most frontline offensive spear users do right now. If you do that, your party should be a bit more balanced. It won't get you all the way, but it should help."

"Well", Samasura says between mouthfuls of food, "You seem to know a lot about party composition for a solo-player."

"I almost feel like we might be able to rise up the ranks a bit more", Ducker says.

"Yeah, well, I play a lot of MMOs and RPGs. Even if this one is a far cry different from your average game, there are definitely some common threads out there."

"Well, thanks for the advice, Kirito!", Kieta replies.

"Well, I should probably take off now. Thanks for the food!", I say, deciding to take the opportunity to bullshit my way out of this conversation.

"Oh, well, we'll see you around then", Ducker says.

"Thanks for all the help", Tetsuo chimes for the help.

"Yeah, thanks!", Samasura says.

"No problem", I reply, hoping my voice doesn't sound as uneasy as I feel.

"You look out for us on the front line", Kieta proclaims. "And feel free to drop by any time!"

"Yeah", I say, getting up and head for the door.

As I pass by, Sachi looks up a bit and gives a weak wave. I'm taken aback for a brief moment before I continue out of the door, the rest of their guild waving me off more enthusiastically.

The inn that the Moonlit Black Cats have made their temporary base of operations is in the main settlement of the eleventh floor, a town called Taft. I only vaguely remembered the town from the beta considering that we reached it right before the beta ended. From what I remember, it has remained basically untouched between the two versions. The town is composed completely of a variety of brick houses. The houses are all painted pretty brightly and there's almost always no space in between them. After sitting down on a bench in the square of the town, I open up my menu and notice that I have a couple of messages. One from Iota and one from PoH. Both of them said something along the lines of: Where the hell were you and why did you take so long to contact us once you rejoined the world of the living? Seeing as I really didn't have anything planned and it was only like nine-thirty, I send a message asking both of them if they wanted to meet me in Taft. Then I noticed something. My friend request list was clogged up. To my horror I discovered that in the month and a half I was gone, upwards of a thousand friend requests had been sent by… TommyBoi420. I've basically been ignoring all of his messages since he first sent me a friend request on the first floor and well, that backfired. I browse through my message history for a moment. It seems he went from annoyed, to desperate, to full-blown psychopath since he sent the first request. My personal favorite was one that read, "I don't know why you haven't responded to my messages, but if you don't, I will find you and I will kill you." Just then I noticed that both Iota and PoH have responded that they're taking care of something really quick and that they'll be down in a few minutes.

While I wait, I think back to my conversation with the Moonlit Black Cats. They all seemed to be good people, Keita's lofty goals aside. Even so, it seemed they all wanted to do some good. They're like Klein's guild, expect less competent and poorly organized. I don't know why, but Sachi really worried me. It seemed to me that she had completely closed herself off. I don't know if Keita and the others noticed or not, but regardless, he seemed pretty insistent on shifting her to a DPS position. All of a sudden, I noticed a person standing in front of me, Keita.

"What are you still doing out here. I mean, I know the cold is virtual and all, but it doesn't exactly feel great."

"Oh", I say, a little flustered and surprised, "I'm just waiting for a couple of people."

"You should have stayed inside then."

"I didn't want to be a bother."

"Dude, you saved our lives. That's the last thing you needed to worry about."

"Yeah, well, I also didn't want things to drag on."

"I guess that's fair."

Keita sits down on the bench next to me.

"Look, I wanted to apologize for Sachi. Once you get to know her, she's great, but she lacks self-confidence. I wanted to put her up on the frontlines in order to help her out, but she seems pretty resistant."

I'm a little taken aback at this. I decide to tell a small lie to help him out.

"Well, all you can do is encourage her."

"Look, from what I can see, you're all pretty naturally talented. You just lacked the experience and know how to properly take advantage of that. If you keep it up, you all could be great players."

"Wow, thanks! Can I tell that to Sachi?!", Keita asks.

"Uh, yeah, go ahead. I don't really have a reason to stop you."

"Well, yeah, but anyways, thanks again for today, and drop by again sometime!"

"Yeah, sure."

Keits gets up and walks back into the inn. I suddenly realize why I was worried about Sachi. She reminds me of myself. I was just like that before SAO. Completely closed off from everyone. Maybe I'm just projecting myself onto her, but Keita's plan to put her on the frontline might help. Once I got into SAO, my skill in the game, along with all of my new friends, helped me gain the confidence I needed to act like a normal human being again. I remember how terrible it was for me before I got stuck in this game. Maybe that's why it felt like such a relief for me be trapped here. This is a world where I can let who I truly show. A world where I can truly have confidence in myself. In all honesty, I think the Moonlit Black Cats would be better as a small-scale guild that just has fun. Although they have some talent, I highly over-exaggerated it to Keita. I just hope that it will get them to work hard to get better.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the teleport circle activate. Iota, PoH and Johnny Black appear. They notice me on a bench and walk over.

"There you are, I was wondering where you had been, FOR THE LAST MONTH AND A HALF!" PoH shouts.

"Sorry, sorry. That was pretty immature of me."

Iota takes his turn next, "Kirito, remember when I spent like a month drilling self-confidence into your head and telling you not to blame yourself?"

"What do you know, I went and did just that", I reply laughing, and the rest of them join in.

"Seriously, I kinda didn't realize what a big help you were until you were gone. We've gotten by just fine though", Johnny comments, and then his face lights up, "Also though what's your level right now, I want to see if after a month of inactivity, I've finally surpassed you."

"Forty", I reply, with a sly smile on my face.

"F-forty! How the fuck! You disappear from the front line for a month and a half and you're level forty."

"Hey, don't underestimate the power of grinding away on cannon fodder for twelve hours a day."

"Twelve hours a day! That's almost even more surprising", Johnny replies, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Your patience for the most insufferable things never ceases to amaze me Kirito", Iota says.

"Yeah. And you know what? I almost missed your Kayaba philosophy lessons. Almost!", PoH exclaims.

"Good god, we're going to have to deal with that again aren't we", Johnny states.

"Yup", I reply laughing. "So, what have you guys been up to lately?"

"Well, besides the clearing and grinding, the campaign is actually really cool. I know you probably haven't caught up yet so I won't spoil anything but it's been fun so far", PoH mentions.

"Oh also, we started a guild!" Johnny exclaims.

"Nice", I reply.

"You interested in joining?", Iota asks.

"Uh, I don't know, maybe."

The three of them look a little confused for a second.

"What are we not good enough for you?", PoH asks, sarcastically.

"No, it's not that, it's just..."

What was it then? I'd been good friends with these guys for a while. There weren't really any detriments to joining a guild. Logically speaking, I had no reason to say no. Why did I still feel reluctant then? Was I afraid of something, was I pushing them away? Well, I needed to stop that. I finally had friends, I wasn't about to turn them down.

"Actually, sure I'll join!"

"Nice", PoH said, "I'll send you an invite."

"By the way what's it called?", I ask.

"Laughing Coffin", Iota replied.

 **3 Years: 90 Days: 0 Hours: 41 Minutes: 5 Seconds Remaining**

"Wow, that's kinda morbid", I reply.

"Actually, it was Xaxa's idea. We were planning to make the guild a while ago before, you know...", PoH remarks.

"Yeah…", I say, trailing off.

"He loved his grandiose names", Johnny comments. "Red Eyed Xaxa was always his favorite gamertag, followed by Sterben. That's German for death apparently."

"Yeah, I can see him doing that that", I say. "Still though, even if I didn't know him for that long, he was a good guy."

PoH nods to himself and sends the guild invite to me. After a brief moment of hesitation, I accept. All of sudden I remember something a certain red-haired (not) samurai said to me.

"You know, maybe we could make a grave for him. Give Xaxa a proper send off."

The other three look at me with surprise for a second.

"Huh", PoH says, "Maybe that would be a good idea. I hardly think a crossed off name on the Monument of Life is a proper way to remember him."

 **3 Years: 89 Days: 14 Hours: 23 Minutes: 57 Seconds Remaining**

Iota, PoH, Jonny and I meet up the next morning on the eighth floor. I asked Klein what he used as a headstone for Dale's grave and he referred me to an engraving NPC shop on floor thirteen. The headstone currently resides in my inventory and we begin to walk toward the fallen elves ambush location. When we arrive, the sun still hasn't quite risen yet. I take the headstone out of my inventory and clumsily put it in place at about the place where Xaxa was crushed. The inscription reads, 'Here lies Red Eyed Xaxa, yet another tragic result of the Sword Art Online incident. To any who read this, remember to keep moving forward no matter what. Kayaba wants us to give up and we can't let him win.' Cheesy, sure, but it gets to point across. I don't actually know how many people will actually see this considering that as a whole, the Elven War Campaign is over now. From what Argo told me, the campaign ended with the two sides agreeing to equal representation in the council and even letting the fallen elves have some representation despite what they did. I'm still trying to figure out what Kayaba was getting at with the ending to the campaign. Maybe a message about benevolence. Kind of an ironic message for someone who trapped ten thousand people in a video game.

The four of us climb up to the top of the fallen snow and gaze out over the horizon. Slowly the horizon starts to climb above the edge of Aincrad. Softly illuminating the sparkling snow that covers the eighth floor. Out of habit, I avert my eyes from the sun even though it can't do any damage my virtual or real eyes. Then again, I wouldn't put it past Kayaba to stop the NerveGear from transmitting visual data to the brain or something equally frustrating.

"To Xaxa", PoH says, bitterly.

"To Xaxa", the rest of us say.

We all sit in silence for a moment more.

"You know, a part of me wants to blame Klein and his party", PoH reveals. "I know how you feel about that Iota, but at the same time..."

He trails off for a moment.

"Sorry, it's just I kind of get what you and Kirito have been talking about. How shifting the blame just makes thing worse. I want so much to blame them, but I guess that would really only make it worse."

"It's tough isn't it", I say. "I mean, in my case, the problem was taking the blame, but I know just as well that taking your anger out on someone else never helps."

"There's nothing we can do about it now except move forward in his stead", Johnny says, resolutely.

The sun finishes rising and then the whole eighth floor is illuminated once again. In SAO, a general ambient light remains in the air even if the sun is nowhere to be seen. Thinking about it, I guess that's another flaw of Sword Art Online. I guess he had the idea for a massive castle before he actually thought about how it was going to be lit.

"Got some Kayaba philosophy for you if you're interested", I mention.

"I swear to God, Kirito", PoH says chuckling.

"Yeah okay, I won't say anything. On a lighter note, what do you say we bury the hatchet and go on some questing?"

"That", Iota says, standing up, "Sounds like an excellent idea."

We all get up and trudge back to a settlement, leaving behind the memory of Xaxa.

 **3 Years: 87 Days: 10 Hours: 13 Minutes: 49 Seconds Remaining**

The floor fifteen boss is some sort of hybrid between a spider and an abominable snowman. The snow spider is covered in a sort of blanched white hair and its legs are made of razor-sharp ice. Its attack patterns consist mostly of downward jabs its legs and jumping around the boss room, both of which are quite frustrating to deal with. It's much harder to keep the aggro away from recovering players when the boss won't stop jumping right on top of them. The chamber for the boss room is made completely of nearly transparent ice and several large pillars to support the whole thing.

The abominable spider takes off with another jump leaving the raid party scrambling to attack. Along with the couple other people who seem to have discovered the skill, I jump forward with a "Vorpal Strike", which helps me close the distance between the boss and I. After landing the skill, I pull into a "Horizontal" strike, which allows me to strike the monster's leg once again. I'm unable to pull off another skill though and I end up in the post-skill movement lock. However, the recovering players have gotten the chance to relocate and the rest of the active fighters have caught up. Iota and the rest of my newfound guild pull up next to me.

"Nice one! As long as we can keep this up, we should be able to pull this off", Iota shouts to me.

"Yeah", I reply.

As soon as I can, I launch into another skill. I unleash a series of four strikes to the abominable spider's legs, successfully completing a "Horizontal Square" skill. I transition out with a backward dodge and let the rest of my party have their turn. With a screech, the spider is reduced to its final phase as its last health bar drops below fifty percent. It jumps straight up into the air, but instead of sailing to another portion of the room, it falls right back down, inflicting damage onto many of the players below. The spider repeats this attack twice more, but fortunately each time fewer people are hit by the attack. I take a split second to judge whether or not it will jump again and then use a "Vorpal Strike" to rejoin the fray. The spider doesn't throw us any more surprises and in a final push, we are able to whittle away the last of the monster's health. It fractures into polygons and the door to the next floor is opened.

"Whoo, another boss defeated", Johnny says, breathing heavily.

It's kind of weird to think that even though all of this is virtual, our brains are still following their fight or flight responses. I start to wonder how that would look on the other side. Definitely some form of increased heart rate. I wonder how the doctors and nurses who are looking after our bodies on the other side react when it happens. Do they wait with bated breath or something similar? I'm drawn back to Earth (or Aincrad more accurately) by the approach of another party. Asuna and Agil's to be more specific.

"Kirito", Asuna says. "It's nice to see you're back on the front lines."

"Miss me?", I ask, sarcastically.

"N-no", she replies. "I will admit though that you've been a big help, though."

"You can drop the stoic act", I say and Asuna sighs.

"Geez, how exactly do you expect me to act after you disappear for a month and a half."

"Yeah, man", Agil chimes in, "You had me worried. And although she won't admit it, I think Asuna was worried as well."

"I was not!", Asuna says exasperatedly.

"You're not fooling anyone", another one of her party members comments.

After a hmph, Asuna turns back to me, "Look, suffice to say, I think we were all worried when you went missing. I saw what happened on floor nine. It seems weird to be saying this after you went around preaching it for months, but you can't blame yourself."

"Yeah, yeah", I reply.

"On another note, you need to stop showing off. You're going to get yourself and others killed if you don't stick to the plan."

"I didn't see the jumping spider sticking to our plans. I was adapting to the situation."

"No..."

We go on bickering for a moment before PoH comments, "Well, it's nice to see that things are back to normal. Why don't we go open up the teleport gate? Take a first look at the sixteenth floor."

"Sure", I say returning my attention to the door. "It's been a while since I've done this."

Several groups have already filtered through the door revealing a dimly light icy passage. Our two parties make our way up to the door and into the passageway. As we go the ice seems to melt away revealing stone wall that seems to be slick with moisture. As we emerge into the next floor, the sun temporarily blinds me. I slowly take in my surroundings and I can't help but let out a low whistle. The entire floor is covered in what looks like a bunch of terraced waterfalls. Different rock formations protrude from the base of the floor, which is completely covered in water. They range from thin spires to massive chunks of granite but water cascades down all of them indiscriminately. Where there isn't water there's vegetation and incredibly rendered rocks.

"Oh, great", Agil says, "A water level."

And then we all bust out laughing.


End file.
